But when she was 27, she said she was trying to find a way out of poverty as a single mom with four children on welfare.

“It was quite a struggle,” said Tripplett, who was born in Detroit and moved to Benton Harbor at 2 years of age. “If you look at the history, there was high poverty (in Benton Harbor) and not a lot of opportunities to transition out of it.”

She said she got no help going back to school from her case worker at the Michigan Department of Social Services, now called the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I would tell her, ‘I would like to go back to school,’” Marian Tripplett said. “She would say, ‘You have too many kids.’”

Tripplett said the state had limited resources to help women on welfare go back to college, and she was considered too old with too many children. She said women between the ages of 18-22 with no more than two children were considered to be good risks. 

She said her life started off with the advantage of being raised by two college-educated parents. But then her mother died of a heart attack when Tripplett was 10 and her sister was 5. She said that lead to her teenage and early adult years being filled with pain from extended grief due to the loss of her mother and her family’s changing dynamics as her father remarried and had two more children. She said she ended up moving to Grand Rapids when she was 15, where she lived with family friends and in foster homes before being emancipated at the age of 16.

“I just needed to be the only one in charge of me,” she said.

She said she returned to Benton Harbor at 18 when her father became sick with cancer and was going through a divorce.

“From every season in my life, I have had learning opportunities that apply even at different times,” she said. “I learned about myself, learned about the world and about society. Eventually, it all factors in to where I am now.”

She said she hopes her story inspires other people in rough situations to keep looking for the help they need to reach their goals.

Tripplett sat down with Staff Writer Louise Wrege to share her journey.

How did you get the help you needed to get your education when you were 27?

At the time, C. Patrick Babcock was the director of the Department of Social Services in Lansing. ... In one particular newspaper (Detroit Free Press), they did an article on the Department of Social Services. He (Babcock) talked about his philosophy, and he said in his interview that if people have questions or concerns, he encouraged people to write him. And it had his address. I went home and in one of my children’s notebooks, I wrote him a handwritten letter. I talked about how I got to where I was. I was trying to get someone to see me other than just what they thought they knew. I told him that I know I can go to college. I want to give my children a different life. I’m a good parent. I knew that as they got into school more, that I would have more time to improve our lot financially. And I wanted to go back. That was always part of the plan.

It took, maybe, three to four weeks and I got this notice from the local (social services) department that I had an appointment to talk about my future. Then, I got another envelope from him where he had copied my letter and sent me a copy of the inter-departmental notice that said, “Let this one in.”

You’re lucky he read your letter and got involved.

I guess maybe on paper I didn’t look good. ... But I had a dream and a desire. And it was mine. ... How can they write people off who are that young? That’s a shame.

Did you receive any other help?

At the same time, (Berrien County Commissioner) Nancy Clark had started partnering with members from the Department of Social Services ... with the Project Together pilot program. It had a partnership with DSS to provide supports to people looking to change their lives. They helped women who felt trapped in poverty. What barriers need to be removed? I became part of that program. I got a scholarship from the American Association of University Women to return to school. And it went well. I had forgotten that I could be a good student.

They helped us with clothes closets when we went on job interviews. They also took time to talk with us. What are your fears? What do you know, and what do you want to know, and what do you want for your life? At that time, I wanted to be a social worker.

Could you have done it without help?

I don’t think so because at that time it was pre-welfare reform. That’s when the business model was kind of coming into human services. They were trying to decide how to best spend a limited amount of money. They knew they wanted people to have opportunities to work and to be self-sufficient. The economy had changed. A lot of programs that supported people in college went away.

Project Together gave me actual support. I needed financial support at that time. I didn’t qualify for student financial aid. And they told me I could do it – gave me the encouragement and motivation that everyone needs at some point. I had been trapped. I only saw myself in my current state.

How did you meet your husband, Reinaldo Tripplett, the principal of Benton Harbor High School?

I went to Benton Harbor (High School) in ninth grade, and that’s where I met my future-to-be husband. He was in 10th grade. We were boyfriend-girlfriend for a bit in high school. Then I went to high school in Grand Rapids. Our lives took different tracks.

How did you reconnect?

Actually, the older of my two daughters (Alexandra Shannon) was Miss Benton Harbor 2003. As she was doing her queen thing, we had more interaction, and as it neared the end of her reign, we realized that we wanted a relationship. When she gave up her crown (in 2004), we married that weekend because all the children were back in town, my sister was back in town, his family was back in town.

http://www.heraldpalladium.com/news/local/from-poverty-to-professor/article_b07f8324-a859-5bc9-8873-89fb6fbd3511.html