Chicago:
A 90-year-old woman in Chicago received her high school diploma, 73 years after she dropped out from the institution during great depression to financially assist her parents.
Eleanor Benz left the Chicago Public Schools' Lake View High in 1936 during her senior year to take a job and help her parents.
This week, at her 90th birthday party, Benz family presented her with the diploma, a 2009 gown, a cap with a 1936 tassel and a wooden replica of Lake View in the 1930s, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
"I was overwhelmed by it all," Benz said proudly displaying her newly received diploma. "I was ecstatic. My diploma is dated February 1, 1936 and signed by Olice Winter, the then principal. I feel blessed," she said.
Benz's children arranged her diploma after she told one of them recently that not graduating from high school was her greatest disappointment.
Karen Siciliano, a secretary at the school, found an old yearbook showing Benz as a sophomore and other records.
Apprised of the situation, the school's principal approved Benz's diploma.
Benz has fifteen children, 54 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren in her family. During all these years, she studied typing and bookkeeping.