Irelan, Joan W.

Joan W. Irelan

Biography

Joan W. Irelan was born in 1930 in Stamford, Connecticut. She moved to New York City when she was nineteen years old and attended business school, after which she worked on Wall Street. She went back to college when she was twenty-five, graduating from Columbia University in 1961. She enrolled in law school at Hofstra University, from which she graduated in 1978. After graduation, Irelan moved to Dallas, Texas, to work with the Federal Reserve Bank.

Texas 150 Oral History

Joan W. Irelan, interviewed by her daughter, discusses how she managed to overcome her life's obstacles in order to pursue her dream of getting an education and being a self-sufficient woman while raising her children. She details her undergraduate studies at Columbia University, her marriage, living in Germany, and attending law school at Hofstra University.