Photo: Danor, George — Public domainSource
Ilo Wallace
politician
- March 10, 1888
- February 22, 1981
- 91 years
About Ilo Wallace
Ilo Wallace was a politician from United States. Born in 1888, Wallace died in 1981 at the age of 91.
Explore other notable deaths in 1981 or deaths in February 1981.
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60 Seconds Life Story
Ilo Wallace served as the second lady of the United States from 1941 to 1945.
Ilo Wallace
1888 – 1981
60 Seconds: Ilo Wallace's Life Story
Ilo Wallace was a socialite and the second lady of the United States who helped revolutionize American agriculture.
Transcript
Ilo Wallace served as the second lady of the United States from 1941 to 1945. Born in 1889 in Indianola, Iowa, she studied voice at Drake University before marrying Henry A. Wallace in 1914. During her time in public life, she notably acted as the sponsor for the battleship USS Iowa. Beyond her official duties, she used a small inheritance to help establish the Hi-Bred Corn Company in 1926. This pioneering venture helped develop and distribute hybrid corn, permanently transforming the landscape of American agriculture. A dedicated mother of three, she lived a long and impactful life. She passed away on February 22, 1981, at the age of 91, at her family estate in South Salem, New York.
Play the illustrated life story above, or read the full biography on this page.
Visual credits: Danor, George (Public domain)source · self-taken photo by the author (Public domain)source · This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing. (Public domain)source · This image is from the FEMA Photo Library (obsolete as of 2019).An archived copy may be found at the Wayback Machine (note: link may be permanently dead, as not all photos were backed up in this way).If the FEMA link is permanently dead, the photo can be found at NARA Access to Archival Databases (only works if photo was taken between 1989 and October 2004), or at City-data.com. (Public domain)source · Own work (CC BY-SA 4.0)source · Juras2021 / Pixabay (Pixabay Content License)source
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Full Biography
|Ilo Wallace (née Browne; March 10, 1889 – February 22, 1981) was the wife of U.S. vice president Henry A. Wallace and thus the second lady of the United States from 1941 until 1945. She was the sponsor of the battleship USS Iowa.
Biography
Born in Indianola, Iowa, she was the daughter of James Lytle Browne and his wife, the former Harriet Lindsay. She attended Simpson College before transferring to study voice at Drake University.
She married Henry Agard Wallace in Des Moines, Iowa, on May 20, 1914. They had three children: Henry Browne Wallace (1915–2005), Robert Browne Wallace (1918–2002), and Jean Browne Wallace (1920–2011). Her husband later became the editor-in-chief of Wallace's Farmer, an influential Midwestern farming magazine that had been founded by his father, Henry Cantwell Wallace, who was the United States secretary of agriculture from 1921 to 1924.
A small inheritance she received from her parents enabled the Wallaces and their business partners to establish, in 1926, the Hi-Bred Corn Company, which developed and distributed hybrid corn and eventually transformed agriculture.
On February 22, 1981, aged 91, she died at the Wallace estate, Farvue Farm, in South Salem, New York. Her funeral was private at her family's request.
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Sources
- Wikipedia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilo_Wallace
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Sep 26, 2026
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- October 21, 2026
- Sep 26, 2026
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