Lois Miles (Zucker) was born in Colorado in 1889 and grew up in Bushnell, Illinois. She enrolled at the University of Illinois where she became a member of Alpha Delta Pi. At Illinois, she earned a Bachelor’s in 1910 and a Master’s in 1914. It appears she was involved in the chapter during her graduate studies. She earned Phi Beta Kappa honors.
She married Adolph E. Zucker, a fellow student, on January 2, 1915. A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, he earned his undergraduate degree in 1912 and a Master’s the following year. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1917.
Frances Morehouse, a National Vice President of Alpha Delta Pi, who was in the chapter with Zucker reminisced in a 1912 Adelphean:
I remember in passing how one erudite classmate of mine, (pointed glance at Lois Miles) who was supposed to spend a good deal of time in the stacks, used to meet me, sometimes, where the dog-eared but still efficacious old files of Life are kept, for the delectation of sober-sided old P. G’s.
A 1918 Adelphean noted that Zucker was in Peking, China, where her husband was teaching at Tsing Hua College. She, too, was teaching English there. For one year, she worked at the Presbyterian Mission School for Boys in Peking and then taught English at the Government University where she was the first female instructor. She also worked at the American Embassy.
Two of Zucker’s letters to her mother appeared in Volume 12 of The Adelphean. Dated May 5 1918, Zucker discussed an invitation to have dinner with a prominent businessman at his factory:
I had been taking lessons in Chinese etiquette for two weeks previous to the event, and was armed to the teeth with phrases and rules of conduct. As he speaks not one word of any language but Chinese and Manchu, I needed to be. There were six other guests beside ourselves, making nine in all, four foreigners and five orientals, of whom M. Chih was the only Manchu. First we sat in a magnificent room and drank tea till all the guests assembled, after which we went to the dinner, which I may as well tell you now I have no power of describing. It was twenty-five courses long. We had all the delicacies, ancient eggs, bamboo shoots, shark’s fins, bird’s nests, pigeon eggs, etc., beside duck, chicken, pork, lamb, turkey, beef, and everything else imaginable. The way they do is to place a number of things around the table which resemble somewhat our idea of salad, pickles, and so on; these remain throughout the dinner. Then in the center they place a piece de resistance of which one is supposed to eat very little. This is then removed and another brought on, ad infinitum. It is all accompanied by wine, which one must, according to etiquette, at least taste. The wine is very thin, vinegary stuff, usually, with a very low percent of alcohol, and served steaming hot, as I think I have told you before. On this occasion it was much stronger, also much hotter. The coming of the rice is always a signal for the conclusion of the feast, and that one must eat, whatever else one takes or leaves.
On this occasion, as on the several preceding of which I have told you, I was the only feminine guest, and was given the seat of highest honor, facing the door. If I had not been taking lessons in Chinese etiquette I would have been unconscious of the great compliment paid me. Also I was the first one served every time, the host himself taking his own chop sticks and placing a portion on my plate, so that I was obliged to eat some of everything, whereas the others could sometimes omit something. I was also denied the privilege of seeing how others did it first, which was very embarrassing, you may be sure. I sat between a Frenchman with whom I essayed to talk French and a Chinese who essayed to talk German to me as he knew no English. With the host I actually managed some conversation in Chinese with much applause from the others. It is not so difficult to open a conversation in Chinese because it is the height of politeness to ask the name of things and all about them, and that is not so involved. It is even quite correct to inquire what the cost was.
The dinner service was of solid silver, plates, cups, and all, beautifully decorated and chased, and the chopsticks were ebony with silver handles. It is no joke to learn to use chopsticks, either. Well, at last it was over, and we made our adieus very shortly, as is also custom after a Chinese dinner. The ride home was very lovely.
The April 1923 Adelphean had this information about her:
You’ll be interested to know that Mrs. Lois Miles Zucker, who has been with the Peking Union Medical College, is now on her way back to the States by way of the Mediterranean and Europe. She expects to arrive here by the beginning of the school year, 1923-1924.
When the couple returned to the United States, they headed to College Park, Maryland, where her husband became a Professor in German and head of the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Maryland. This job was facilitated by an introduction to a University of Maryland administrator his wife had made while she was employed by the American Embassy in Peking.
The couple spent a few years at College Park, then hopscotched to a couple of other universities before landing back at the University of Maryland in 1938, where husband accepted the Chairmanship of the Department of Humanities. He retired from Maryland in 1961.
Lois Miles Zucker did graduate work at the University of Paris in 1923 and 1927. She taught French at the University of Maryland, and then taught classics at American University. In 1933, she earned a Ph.D. from Catholic University.
Upon her husband’s retirement from Maryland, it was said that the Zucker’s home and garden were “well-known by the generations of Marylanders who during the thirty-eight years of his association with the University have been received there with gracious hospitality.” One can surmise that Lois Miles Zucker had a great deal to do with this as she seemed to have a zest for life.
The Zuckers also had a hand in awarding of the 1950 Alpha Delta Pi Fellowship grant to Simone Fastres of Brussels Belgium. He recommended Fastres for the $250 fellowship. According to the article in The Adelpehan:
Announcement of the grant and presentation of the check to Miss Fastres took place at a dinner at the Beta Phi chapter house on the Maryland campus, Wednesday, Feb. 15. Alpha Delta Pi is indebted to Dr. A .E. Zucker, head of the department of Foreign Languages and Literature, College of Arts and Sciences, for his recommendation of Miss Fastres for the grant. Her brilliant work in his class and her sincerity of purpose won his attention. Dr. Zucker was present at the dinner at which the award was announced and the sorority was particularly happy to have present also on this occasion, Mrs. Zucker, better known to Alpha Delta Pis as Dr. Lois Miles Zucker, Sigma chapter.
In the 1960s, Lois Miles Zucker taught at the University of North Alabama. She died in March 1982.
