Honoring Harvey UberEdith M. Andersen got to know Professor Harvey Uber when she took a geography class at Wisconsin State College in the early 1950s. Uber was the chairman of the Geography department and was also involved in many campus activities, including serving as advisor to the Men’s Club and acting as a chaplain on campus.

After graduation in 1954, Edith went on to a teaching career at Burdick Elementary School in Milwaukee Public Schools. When she retired in 1988, she bought a life insurance policy, but never got around to listing a beneficiary on it.

When she was in college, her mother had burned her hands and arms in an accident and couldn’t work for a period of time. Edith was unsure about how she would be able to remain in the dorm because her mother’s salary was essential to paying for Edith’s education. She feared she would have to quit school, but her mother was able to continue working. Years later, Edith learned that Uber had volunteered to be an anonymous donor if she needed one.

Edith decided to donate her life insurance policy to UWM’s School of Education as a thank you to Uber. When she dies, the policy proceeds will endow the Harvey A. Uber Scholarship. Edith knows her scholarship will honor Uber’s memory and help other students complete their teacher education. When asked about how she feels now that the scholarship is being established, Edith replied, “I only wish I had done this sooner.”

If you are thinking about a gift in memory of a special professor or teacher, tell me about it. We have many options for making a gift. A life insurance policy is just one way to accomplish this, but it is also becoming a popular vehicle for giving because it is simple to do.

The donor signs over ownership and makes the university the beneficiary of the policy. The donor continues payments on the policy and receives tax benefits. The value of the policy can be more than enough to establish an endowed scholarship. If the donor establishes the scholarship ahead of time, the donor has the satisfaction of knowing they are helping another student to become a teacher.

Niece Honors Early Teacher Lucy WaechterLast October, I spoke to a retired teacher named Lorna Waechter (BS ’40, MS ’71) when I called to thank her for a gift she had made to the School of Education.

Lorna said she was interested in a scholarship she had read about in an earlier issue of this magazine. The scholarship was established by Joseph and Marion Ward to honor the memory of their cousin, Lillian Opperman Fuller, who graduated as a teacher in 1929.

That scholarship is a combination annual gift and planned gift, which will ultimately result in an endowed scholarship. After hearing about the scholarship, Lorna decided she would like to do something similar. The result is the Cora and Lucy Waechter Scholarship, an endowed scholarship established by Lorna to honor the memory of Cora and Lucy, two of the donor’s aunts, who were teachers in Washington County, WI in the early 1900s.

The Waechter family attended one-room schools as students, and Cora, Lucy and later their niece, Lorna, taught in one-room schools in what was rural Jackson, WI. Lorna remembers being driven in a car to school by her father in the fall and spring.

During the winter, however, her father drove Lorna and her sister Violet in a horse-pulled bobsled. A hot paper-wrapped stove lid warmed their feet and a blanket protected them from the wind and cold as the girls made their way to school.

One of the customs of the rural schools was for the teacher to give her students a souvenir on the last day of school. The souvenir was actually a paper booklet bound with string, often featuring the teacher’s picture on the cover, and listing all the students’ names on the inside. It also included poems with illustrations.

The Cora and Lucy Waechter scholarship gives others the opportunity to carry forward to the 21st century the vision, love and learning Lorna Waechter and her aunts instilled in students in the early 20th century.