Her mother, a highschool graduate from Virginia, worked as a postal stamp examiner. With the stress of the Great Depression, her parents eventually separated. Evelyn’s mom, Julia Walker, ended up gaining custody of her two little girls. Julia raised her two daughters alongside her twin sister, Louise Walker (Biographies of Women Math Mathematicians n.pag,). Growing up, Evelyn loved school. The school system in Washington, attracted many different teachers and administrators; the teachers were all trained to teach at their own teaching level. Evelyn’s favorite subject in school was mathematics. She had always dreamt of being a mathematics teacher (Granville. My life as a Mathematician. n. pag). She was named salutatorian of her junior high school. She went to the prestigious Dunbar High School, and was then named one of five valedictorians from her graduating class.
Her high school had been home to many significant black leaders. The school was also great in education, it had gained success in a national level (Biography.com Editors n.pag). Evelyn submitted college applications to two colleges, hoping to get scholarships. The first college she applied to was Smith College, and the second was Holyoke. She was accepted into both but neither offered any financial help for her freshman year. Her Aunt Louise, who was determined to get her niece to college in the north, offered to pay half of her fees, while a scholarship from Phia Delta Kappa, a sorority who offers financial aid for black teachers, payed the rest of her way in. In the fall of 1941, Evelyn went to Smith College. After completing her required courses of language and humanity, Granville focused her studies on mathematics, astronomy and theoretical physics. “ I was fascinated by the study of astronomy and at one point I toyed with the idea of switching my major to this subject,” said Evelyn in an article she published called “My Life as a Mathematician.” In the 1940’s the United States had not yet launched it’s space program or Granville might have even changed her major to an astronomer. Granville, later graduated from Smith College in 1945, with honors mathematics, but because she was an outstanding student Smith Student Aid Society gave her a scholarship so she could begin her graduate study in the fall. She was accepted into two different graduate schools, Yale University and the University of Michigan. Granville, eventually chose Yale, because the university gave her a scholarship to go along with the one she had gotten from Smith College. During her years at Yale she was awarded the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship, twice. During her final year of study, she was awarded the Atomic Energy Commission Predoctoral Fellowship and studied under Dr. Enir Hillie. In 1949, Evelyn was awarded a Ph.D. in mathematics. In that same year, in the other graduate school she was accepted into, Dr. Marjorie Lee Browne, also earned a Ph.D. in mathematics, making her and Granville the first two black women in the United States to have a Ph.D. in mathematics. After getting her doctorate, Granville spent a year as a research assistant at New York Institute of Mathematics and as a part time instructor at the same institute. When finding teaching fulfilling she looked into a full time teaching position for