Career
Born Emma Cecilia Milow, but known as Cecilia ("Cissy" to her intimate circle), she was the youngest of three daughters born to Johan Fredrik Milow (born 1814) and Mary Lindgren (1825–1906). Her London-born Anglo-Swedish mother was a translator, author and pedagogue. Her musical eldest sister, Thekla Milow (born 1848, London), was the wife of Baron Sten Miles Sture (1806-1875), the last of his historic dynastic line.
Milow was originally devoted to education, founding a girls" school in Skövde 1887–1902 with the patronage of the wealthy philanthropist Consul Oscar Ekman (1812–1907).
He also urged her to pursue further studies in England and Germany. Between 1902 and 1911, Ekman sponsored Milow to take further prolonged periods of study leave.
She first returned to England, where she concentrated on childcare and the social problems of industrial towns and cities. She then continued to America, where she pursued her study of philanthropic and social work, visiting various social clubs and working class districts in a number of states.
She was particularly fascinated by two boys’ clubs, one founded by a wealthy business man named Cornelius Loder in New York, and another set up by a Scot named Thomas Chew, at the industrial town of Fall River, an hour’s journey from Boston.