When Jennifer Olson dons her gray commencement robe this weekend, she will stand on the shoulders of four family members stretching back exactly 100 years.

Great-grandfather Fred Koenig, a 1909 Cornell veterinary graduate -- taught by the renowned James Law, the inaugural professor of veterinary medicine at Cornell -- became a popular Cornell instructor of ambulatory medicine. That is, until the popularity of the horse as basic transportation began to wane; he left academia in 1918 to start a mixed-animal hospital practice in Jamestown, N.Y.

Olson will also stand on the shoulders of her grandmother, Marie Koenig-Olson, who in 1937 became the seventh woman to graduate with a Cornell D.V.M. She ran the Jamestown Animal Hospital and provided veterinary service to livestock on local farms while raising two children and caring for an ailing father while her husband was serving overseas during World War II. When Ray Olson returned from war, he went to college on the GI Bill and received a D.V.M. in his late 40s, 20 years after his wife.

Growing up with two veterinarians for parents, Jennifer Olson's father, James, earned his Cornell D.V.M. in 1973. After selling the Jamestown practice following the death of his parents, he established a feline hospital in Castle Rock, Colo.

When Jennifer Olson applied to vet schools in 2005, several western institutions offered her a place. By choosing Cornell she is continuing the family tradition of becoming a Big Red veterinarian.

Donald F. Smith, D.V.M., is the Austin O. Dean Emeritus at Cornell.