Born December 17, 1913 Cleveland Ohio, as Evelyn Marie Keller before she joined the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary or BVMs at the age of 18, Sister Mary Kenneth Keller changed her name after making her vows. Not much is known of her childhood, other than she spent most of it in Chicago where she went to high school. Her parents, unlike the high level of education she would go on to achieve, never had an education above the eighth grade level.
Kenneth was born in 1913 in Cleveland Ohio, but spent most of her time in Chicago. Growing up, Kenneth was an excellent student enjoying journalism and English. At 18, she joined the Catholic congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She attended DePaul University, Dartmouth University, UW-Madison, and the University of Wisconsin where she earned her PhD. During her academic journey, Kenneth founded a Computer Science department at Clarke University in Iowa striving for equal access to computing for everyone.She saw computers as the future and wanted to take advantage of the new tool as best as she could in preparation.
A trailblazer in Computer Science, especially for women, many advances in the field and its teachings can be accredited to Sister Mary Kenneth Keller. For instance, Kenneth had founded and taught for 18 years at the computer science department at Clarke University. Many attribute her to helping to develop the user-friendly experience of the BASIC computer programming language developed by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz however this is largely disputed between documents. Regardless, Kenneth helped spread the reach of the programming language and computer science through her teaching efforts, helping more students learn the language. On that same mission, she founded the Association of Small Computer Users in Education or ASCUE that continues to this day to spread the combination of technology in education.