Picture of an Elon art class in the 1910s-1920s. Pictured from the bottom to the top is Annie Bagwell, Virgie Beale, ?, Lucy Gregory, Sadie Fonville, Lila Newman, Pat Preston, Helen Machen, Jane Michael?, Annie Laurie Wicker, Cynthia Garrett, and Birtha Garrison?. Standing is Cornelia Bryan. Lila Newman was born in Elon College, North Carolina in October of 1892. She was the daughter of one of the original Elon faculty members, and she later became a member of Elon’s faculty as well. Newman, along with three of her other siblings were born deaf. Neither she nor her siblings learned to speak in sign language as a child, rather her mother taught them to speak and attempted to teach them so well that no one would know that they were deaf. Newman graduated from Elon in 1911, again with another degree in 1916, then from Columbia University in 1923, and from Harvard in 1931. She became the head of the Elon College Art Department in 1929, and did not retire until 1963. Newman died in November of 1974.