Laura Bock: A Dream Deferred but Not Forgotten

Laura Bock says it’s never too late to pursue your dreams.

It was the fall of 1970 when I drove from San Francisco to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst to begin graduate studies in their history department.

The following year, I suddenly went blind. Diagnosed with optic neuritis, I was told I would never see again. I spent many months recuperating and learning how to be blind in the world.

When I resumed my graduate studies, I discovered insurmountable barriers. Computers with special software for blind students were non-existent at that time. I didn’t have the tools or the experience to do the research and paper-writing which had always been easy for me. My frustration turned to depression and I was stymied. I returned home to San Francisco feeling defeated and ashamed, my dream of teaching history gone.

50 years later, I read a book by women historians that astonished me. Each woman had taken an unconventional path in obtaining her advanced degree after having left academia. Encouraged, I wrote to the History department at Amherst, requesting my Masters on the basis of the past 50 years I had kept my “hands in history.”

On Women’s History Month of 2023, I was notified that they had approved my proposal!

At the age of 77 I received my diploma, with tears and joy. Finally, I can call myself a historian and continue doing the work I love.
So, what’s the lesson here? Is it “never too old”? Is it that anyone with an academic dream deferred can revisit it even 50 years later? I hope so.

I give credit to my University for considering that an unconventional pathway can be valid. l also give myself credit for being so audacious!

With a Perspective, I’m Laura Bock.

Laura Bock is a native San Franciscan living in Mill Valley. She is an author and enjoys processing archival collections. Laura’s Perspective was read by Nsomeka Gomes.