Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Lonita Joyce Gustad was born on May 19, 1928, at Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, South Dakota, and grew up on a farm near Volin with her parents and younger sister. She began keeping a diary in 1945 at the age of 17, inspired by the historic events surrounding the end of World War II. Gustad graduated from Yankton High School in 1946 and attended South Dakota State College, earning a pharmacy degree in 1950. She was one of eight women in a graduating class of sixty-four pharmacy students, with a minor in chemistry.
Following graduation, she worked at Woodward Pharmacy in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and later in Sioux City, Iowa, where she resided for many years. In 1951, she married Thomas Edward Corothers, whom she met during college. They had one son, John, born in 1952, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1972. Thomas Corothers passed away in 1998. Lonita Corothers maintained a lifelong practice of journaling and writing, ultimately donating her extensive personal and literary papers to South Dakota State University.