Minnie Sutter Scholarship

When Minnie Sutter remembered her college years at Goshen, in the mid-30’s, she thought of the Depression–of hard times. She remembered having to postpone college for a year, cleaning houses in Valparaiso for three and a half dollars a week. She remembered studying and attending classes in the mornings, and working in the college “shirt factory” in the afternoon, a business operating out of the Coffman Hall basement to help students pay for their rooms. She thought of herself and other students taking the shirts home with them during vacations, of trying to sell them in their own congregations and communities. She remembered friends and neighbors “helping when they could.”

Those were times characterized by a spirit of “making do,” and Minnie didn’t remember them with unhappiness. She “had lots of fun, made lots of friends.”

“But I would have appreciated it so much if some kind of financial aid would have been available,” she continued. “There were no loans, no scholarships to be had. No one had any money.” Her memories, coupled with her lifelong interest in education, moved her to begin a scholarship plan with Goshen College.

Minnie’s first teaching assignment was in a one-room country school. She enjoyed that first year, though for a time she doubted she had the skills to be a good teacher, especially because she was responsible for grades one through six, all at the same time! An incident persuading her otherwise involved an extraordinarily bashful first grade boy. For six weeks he covered his face with his hands, and would not be cajoled into participating in class activities. Minnie couldn’t reach him, and began to despair that he would never learn to read. Then one day a boy sitting near him was having trouble with a question, when suddenly the shy student uncovered his face and blurted the answer. “From that time on,” Minnie laughed, “he ran circles around the others. He’d been learning the whole time.”

After her first year, Minnie taught fourth grade for six years in Kouts, and then moved to South Bend, where she taught 35 years, until her retirement in 1978.

Minnie died October 15, 2003 at Greencroft Retirement Community in Goshen, Indiana.