Jack and Elaine Koehn in Goslar, Germany, 1994. They have four children, nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

In 1951 a 17-year-old girl from Malta, Mont. (population 1,500), Elaine Edwards struck out to Berkeley for nursing school.

At UC she met her late husband, Jack Koehn, and married him in 1955. When Jack had to report to Virginia for military training, Elaine followed him. When he was sent to Japan, she returned to UCSF.

After graduating in 1957, Elaine went home to Malta and worked as the charge nurse in the 33-bed local hospital. But when Jack returned and the couple moved to Oklahoma, she began working in surgery. "I loved surgery when I was in school," she explains.

They moved back to the Bay Area where Elaine continued working in surgery full-time until her first son was born, in 1959. She switched to part-time and welcomed three more children in the '60s. "After you have enjoyed something as much as I enjoyed surgery…it was boring to be a housewife," she says.

Jack was very supportive of her desire to work. He became a vice president of PG&E in 1980 and Elaine, with four anesthesiologists, opened a free-standing surgery center in San Leandro. She retired in 1990.

When Jack was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer in 1994, he was forced to retire. At his retirement party and after his death just 10 months later, Jack's friends made financial gifts for a memorial. "We both appreciated all that UCSF had contributed to our lives," says Elaine. "We decided to give the money to the School of Nursing." These gifts were the base of the Jack and Elaine Koehn Endowed Chair in Pediatric Nursing, which Elaine established in his memory and in recognition of her 75th birthday.

"Elaine Koehn Brookes has been an extraordinary alumna," says Dean Kathy Dracup, "first serving as president of the Nursing Alumni Association Board and now providing this extremely generous gift to support pediatric nursing. We are all so grateful to her."

For more information about the UCSF School of Nursing, contact Mark Boone at 415/502-8310 or MBoone@support.ucsf.edu.