In May of 1936 when I was just four, I wandered into the kitchen to see my father and mother engaged in a most earnest conversation. I stood transfixed and stock still, eavesdropping. For the first time that I can recall, I saw my mother cry. This should have been a happy day. My oldest brother, Franklin, had just graduated from high school as the valedictorian of his class and he hoped to go to college to study physics and be active in one of the technical aspects of the then new and exciting area of radio transmission and reception.
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But in the depths of the Great Depression, there were few extra dollars to be earned from the produce of a subsistence farm, and besides there were four younger children to be clothed, fed, and schooled, and the cost for college, though small, was still significant and out of reach for a poor farm family. I vividly recall my father soberly noting these realities and saying, "I just don't see how we can do it," and my mother weeping and replying, "as long as there is a will there is a way; we'll find a way."
And they did! Franklin ultimately completed a master's degree with honors in history, and eventually became the principal of a high school just five miles away, where he served for twenty years. He became a respected and generous community leader. All four of us remaining later received the same encouragement from our parents, and all had some experience of higher education.When those pious and devoted parents died they left $2,700 in a bank account, a section (640 acres) of land, and a recorded income too small to be taxed. They also left a dog-eared Bible, and one priceless treasure for their children--a love of and devotion to education--even though formal education for them had ended after the third grade. It is from that rich legacy that this gift comes and is given to honor those parents, Frank E. and Myrtle D. Roetzel, to assist the Program in Religious Studies at the University of Minnesota and to expand the vision of University students.
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