Alice Porter Brackett '41 Endowed Scholarship

The following biography was written at the time of this scholarship establishment; some information may not be up to date:

Alice Gadsden Porter was born in Greenville, South Carolina in 1920, the eldest of four children. Her family moved from Greenville to Greensboro, North Carolina in 1935, where she graduated from Greensboro Senior High School (now Grimsley) in 1937. In 1941, Alice graduated from The Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina (now UNCG) with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. At WC, she was a member of the Chemistry Club, the Physics Club, the Zoology Field Club, and on the Honor Roll. After a year at Bowman Gray School of Medicine, Alice worked as a chemist at Ecusta in Brevard, North Carolina. In 1943, she married William Brackett, Jr., a Hendersonville, North Carolina architect then serving in the US Army. Following World War II, Alice became a fulltime homemaker in Asheville, North Carolina. In 1951, the family moved to Hendersonville, where Alice spent the remainder of her life. She reared five children, born from 1946 through 1964. While rearing her family and managing the household, Alice was a substitute teacher in the Hendersonville school system. Later she taught at, and was headmistress of, St. James School for Little Folks. A lifelong Methodist, Alice taught Sunday School for many years. She also served as president of the Junior Welfare Club and the Hendersonville Cotillion Club, was a board member of the Henderson County Girl Scout Council, was a member of the PEO Sisterhood, and served on the executive board of Henderson County United Way. Alice was loved by all who knew her as a wonderful person, selfless and empathetic. She died of cancer in 1973.

William E. “Bill” Brackett III was born in 1946, the eldest of Alice’s five children. He grew up in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Susan “Sue” Cowilich Brackett was a native of the state of New York, born in 1944 in Mt. Kisco, the younger of two daughters and graduating from Pawling High School. Bill and Sue met at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and were married in 1970. They made their home in Hendersonville and Willingboro, New Jersey, before settling in Boulder, Colorado, where they reared three daughters. Bill was a computer scientist, Sue a homemaker and librarian. In 2011, Sue died of cancer in Longmont, Colorado, where Bill still lives.