Greta and Leona Albrecht Financial Aid Fund
Leona and Greta grew up in a conservative Mennonite home near Pigeon, Michigan. They had four sisters, Gertrude, Ruth, Vera, and Mildred, and a brother Clayton. They never married and for many years lived with their parents David and Lydia on the family farm. Family life was a high priority for the Albrecht family. They spent many hours with each other, celebrating birthdays, holidays, special occasions, and many Sundays together. All of the nieces and nephews especially appreciated Leona and Greta who were the stereotypical doting aunts.
Although their parents were not college graduates, they did encourage and help Leona and Greta with college expenses. Because of their own struggles to obtain an education and the help they received, Leona and Greta gave assistance to eight nieces and nephews – including the founders of this scholarship – to help them with their college expenses.
As students in the one-room Weiss Country School near Pigeon, Greta and Leona began to understand and appreciate the value of education. Leona, the older sister, finished eighth grade in 1939, but never attended high school. In her early teens, she began working at a variety of jobs for about 5 or 6 years. At age 21, while enrolled in a short-term Bible course at Eastern Mennonite College, Leona became interested in furthering her own education. Her desire was to become an elementary school teacher. Lacking a high-school education, she tested into the college program and studied for two years at Eastern Mennonite College. She returned to Michigan and taught in rural schools for four years supplementing her EMC studies with correspondence courses, night classes and summer school work.
Meanwhile, Greta, Leona’s younger sister, attended Weiss and Elkton Schools and went on to graduate from Pigeon High School in 1949. Encouraged by her sister’s reports of college life at EMC, Greta also enrolled in EMC’s elementary education program. After two years, she, too, returned to Pigeon for some teaching experience. Upon completing supplemental work through Central Michigan University, Greta returned with Leona to complete their final year of college together at EMC. Leona and Greta graduated with degrees in elementary education in 1955.
Leona taught for 25 years at Michigan Mennonite School in Pigeon, in Ontario, California and back at Bay Port Elementary near Pigeon before retiring in 1976. She died in 1978 after battling cancer for several years. Greta also taught at Michigan Mennonite, before taking the position from which she retired at Pigeon Elementary and still lives in Pigeon in the house she and Leona built together. To the extent possible she remains involved in the lives of her nieces and nephews who now live in Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Ohio and Kansas.
To commemorate the lives of Leona and Greta Albrecht–loving aunts, generous women and model educators–Ron Gunden, nephew and recipient of his aunts’ generosity, and his wife Linda, established this scholarship to help students meet the rising cost of college education. It is their hope that in the future, recipients of the scholarship will in turn help other students, thus adding more links to the giving chain and keep alive the generous spirit exhibited by Leona and Greta.