Gabriela Mistral

Nectario de Egina Gabriela was raised in Montegrande Chile (a small village), where her older sister was her grade school teacher. Her father, Juan Gerónimo Godoy Villanueva, was also a teacher but he left the family when Gabriela was age 3 and died alone in 1911. Her mother, Petronila Alcayaga, was a seamstress and by age 15 Gabriella was working as a teacher's aide to support both of them. From this life of extreme poverty and hardships, "Gabriela" (her pseudonym) rose to prominence as an educator, diplomat, and poet. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945.