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Ilo Wolff Matchett is a benefactor and encouragement to the Department of Foods & Nutrition. Born in 1917 on a farm close to Tyner, Indiana, she received a BS from Purdue in Institutional Management in 1940. She served for 39 years as an administrator for the University of Chicago Medical Center Food Services.
Ilo has been a generous donor to the College of Consumer and Family Sciences for many years. The Department of Foods & Nutrition greatly benefitted from her unrestricted gift funds. Her vision and contributions made possible projects that had no other source of funding. When stuck for a funding source over the years, the business office would occasionally say, “perhaps we could use Matchett funds for that.” And the problem was solved!
Success is seldom self-made, but is assisted by helping hands along the way. Ilo’s generosity has been that sort of helping hand in this department. The successes of the professor whose start-up fund was supported by Matchett gifts are partially her successes. His productivity and the increased capacity and stature he brings to the Department of Foods and Nutrition must be shared with the person who enabled his hire. Another major use of these flexible funds was for purchase of equipment for the metabolic kitchen in Stone 231. It was a huge help to have those unrestricted funds available when funds ran short during the construction of that facility.
Ilo Matchett was approached in the fall of 2001 to support a specific project. Stone 229, the introductory food science laboratory, was approved by the University for renovation and, as an original lab in the building, it was greatly needed. As it happened, funds allotted for the project were inadequate to provide quality equipment and appointments in the laboratory. She extended her impact on this department by funding the balance of the Ilo Wolffe Matchett Food Science Laboratory, dedicated in fall 2003. She later endowed a fund to provide upkeep for this laboratory, “in order that the students might have the best environment for learning.”
The relationship that developed between Ilo Matchett and the Department of Foods & Nutrition is a natural one. In her years as a food service administrator at the University of Chicago Medical Center, she frequently participated as a subject in their clinical studies. She has been an inspiration for healthy lifestyle; choir, square dancing and walking each day are only a few of the good lifestyle choices she made in retirement. She has practiced what this department preaches. Consequently, this gift was a great match for Ilo’s own career and retirement. The functions of this laboratory parallel her career and interests, since the room is used to prepare students for careers in health and food supervision during the traditional school year and is used as a metabolic kitchen for human nutrition clinical research in the summer.
She was married to Hugh M. Matchett in 1956. They enjoyed traveling and exploring new territory together. She has been a P.E.O. member for more than 50 years. After retiring, Ilo became interested in geneology. The family history she created is now in it final stages.
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