Monika Kehoe

Monika Kehoe (September 11, 1909 – November 16, 2004) was a pioneering American educator, who focused on training teachers of English as a second language, as well as on women's studies, and aging in the LGBTQ community. Born in Dayton, Ohio, and raised as Catholic, she attended parochial schools in Fort Wayne, Indiana, received a bachelor's degree at Mary Manse College and went on to earn a doctorate at Ohio State University in 1935. She taught English literature and applied linguistics in the United States, Korea, Japan, Australia, Ethiopia, Canada, and Guam. One of the pioneers who turned learning English as a second language into an academic endeavor, she taught English to Korean and Japanese civil servants who worked with American and Allied administrators after World War II and during the Korean War. She also created the first curricula for instructors teaching English as a second language in Canada in the 1960s.

Kehoe began writing while serving as the adult education director at the Japanese internment camp at Gila River in Arizona. She was the first human resources guidance counselor for the United Nations. In 1974, Kehoe founded the women's studies courses at the University of Guam and in 1980 began some of the first investigations into the issues impacting aging lesbians and homosexuals. Although she recognized during her youth that she was attracted to women, Kehoe did not have words to describe her sexual orientation and did not come out until the late 1970s. She is remembered primarily for her pioneering LGBTQ studies.