Evelyn Van Donk was the wife of Harry Steenbock. Evelyn Carol [Van Donk] Steenbock was born July 6, 1905 in Wells Michigan. Evelyn received her B.S. degree in nutrition sciences from the University of Wisconsin in 1927. She continued studies at University of Wisconsin in Biochemistry and was awarded a M.S. in 1932. She was a research assistant and associate with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation [WARF] from 1942 to 1944 working under the distinguished scientist, Professor Harry Steenbock. Mrs. Steenbock collaborated with her husband in research that lead to international acclaim for devising a method to enrich milk with Vitamin D, a discovery that lead to the near elimination of rickets, as well as in the early research that led to the use of iron and copper for the treatment of nutritional anemia. The patent royalties from Steenbock's process have underwritten an immeasurable variety of research at the UW since 1925. From 1944 to 1948 Evelyn was a researcher at the Lederle Pharmaceutical laboratory in Pearl River New Jersey.

Evelyn and Harry Steenbock were married in New York City in March 1948. Together they shared the years before his death in December 1967 as active and philanthropic supporters of arts and academic communities in Madison and throughout the state of Wisconsin. From 1967 until her death in 1992, Mrs. Steenbock continued the work begun with her husband and was affiliated with cultural and civic organizations including the Madison Civic Music Association, the Madison Art Center, Madison Symphony Orchestra and League and the Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Sciences and Letters. In 1974, she established the awards for the Madison Symphony Orchestra's Young Artist Competition. She served as an advisor to the Board of Directors of Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra and endowed WYSO with a bequest from her estate. In recognition of her commitment and effort the University of Wisconsin conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in 1984 and she was further honored by then Governor Anthony Earl in 1986. Through her generosity and foresight she created the Steenbock Professorships in the natural sciences, the Steenbock Symposia in the life sciences, the Steenbock Lectureships that are anchored at the University of Wisconsin but benefit humanity on an international basis. Mrs. Steenbock worked as a volunteer in a number of causes, performing her good works in a quiet, self effacing manner. Mrs. Steenbock died on October 19, 1992. She is buried beside her husband at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison Wisconsin.

Evelyn Steenbock