Will Ella Lockhart (1926-2022) was born and grew up in Forest City, Arkansas. Shortly after graduating from high school in Arkansas, she moved to St. Louis and enrolled in Tucker Business College. She graduated in 1945 with a “diploma and certificate of merit” for completion of a stenographic course. Almost immediately, she landed a job with the St. Louis Board of Education as a stenographer. In 1949 she joined the Women’s Army Corp and worked as a clerk typist. After leaving the army, she landed a job with the Military Personnel Record center where she worked for 30 years, retiring in 1982. Lockhart was a longtime member of the Tucker Business College Alumni Association. She died in 2022 and is interred at Jefferson Barracks.

Tucker Business College was founded by Blanche Oden Tucker (1888-1966) in 1921. The college was an important institution of learning and training in the African American community at a time when opportunities for post-secondary education were limited. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (June 28, 1966), it was “the first Negro business college in St. Louis.” Beginning with one student, the school reached its peak enrollment of 660 students after World War II. The school was in existence until 1966, closing shortly after Tucker’s death. The college building caught fire in 1968, destroying many of the school’s records.