accepted the appointment to ensure Colby women received the best education possible. She pushed for women to be represented more in the college, and she became the first female Trustee of the college in 1911. She also served as the first President of the Colby Alumnae Association. She lobbied Colby to appoint its first female professor, Ninetta May Runnals, and was a strong advocate that Colby should provide better housing for its female students, which it eventually did. Career Coburn was trained as a botanist, and she wrote science books and pamphlets in addition to being the editor of the "Maine Naturalist." In addition to her scientific pursuits, she wrote "Skowhegan on the Kennebec" and was regarded as a fine poet. Later life Louise had the pleasure of seeing Sigma Kappa grow beyond her initial dreams of what it could be. Her family became very involved in the sorority. Her sister, Grace Coburn Smith, Alpha, became National President of Sigma Kappa. Two of her nieces, Louise Coburn Smith Velten and Helen Coburn Smith Fawcett, are Alpha chapter initiates. Joseph Coburn Smith, her nephew, married Ervena Goodale, Alpha. Later in life, Coburn continued to live in Skowhegan at the family home where she was born. This is located at the intersection of Elm and Pleasant streets near the banks of the Kennebec River. In 1936, at eighty years of age, she purchased a vacant cottage on the south side of Elm Street, across from her home. She added a wing as a museum room and a repository for her writings and her research papers. Many early town records and maps filled this room as well as historic documents and a library of historical research books The 1939 brick cottage was restored and renovated to its original state as nearly as was possible to determine, and filled with furnishings, antiques and items of everyday living. Her theme was to furnish the cottage as it would have appeared during the middle 19th century. All items in the collection were donated by families that lived in Skowhegan. She welcomed visitors to her home as her strength allowed. She became completely bedridden but remained mentally alert, reading often and singing hymns when reading tired her. One of her letters to her Sigma Kappa sisters ended, "May the loving spirit of Sigma Kappa continue to guide you." Coburn was 93 when she died February 7, 1949.