Alumnae/i Feature

Simmons University Celebrates the 100th Birthday of Isabelle Chang ’46

100-year-old Isabelle Chang '46, who says reading is the secret to a happy life. Photo credit: Evan Walsh, Community Advocate
Photo credit: Evan Walsh, Community Advocate

“I was always a dreamer,” said Chang. “My father always had a book in his hands, and that’s when I first started to get thinking about books. If you don’t know something, you can probably find it in some book somewhere.”

A first-generation American, Chang was the fifth of nine children. A lover of books, she graduated from Simmons (then-College) with an undergraduate degree in Library Science.

Yearbook photo of Isabelle (Clin) Chang ’46

Accompanying her photo in the Class of ’46 Microcosm is a description: “Under that queenly grace is a fun-loving little devil...interests are wide including MIT to Yale boys...delights in debating and everything Chinese…”

In 1948 she married Min Chueh “M.C.” Chang and moved to Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, where she lives today. Her husband would later co-develop the birth-control pill and in-vitro fertilization, leading to the first American-born IVF baby in 1981, Elizabeth Carr ’04, who also graduated from Simmons.

In addition to raising their children, Chang served on the Shrewsbury Public Library Board of Trustees until she was hired as a librarian. Five years later, her career moved to school libraries, where she worked for the next 17 years. She has also published several books, spanning her interests from local history to Chinese folktales and cooking. The town of Shrewsbury celebrated her birthday with an interview for the local newspaper. 

Read the interview on This Week in Worcester

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