Librarian Martha Kruse Furbur lived frugally and invested wisely.
Bankers were her best friends, sometimes her only friends.
Her apartment was sparse, but on Thursday her estate officially gave Emporia State University $1.875 million for scholarships to students in the School of Library and Information Management.
It’s the largest single gift to ESU — ever.
“This is extraordinary,” said ESU president Michael Lane.
Furbur’s gift was considered the second-largest until the university received additional money from her estate on Wednesday, putting it over the top.
And a few days earlier, the university announced a tuition voucher program funded by the Jones Foundation for incoming freshmen to ESU or the Flint Hills Technical College. Lane estimates the program has about $400,000 for next fall’s high school seniors in Lyon, Coffey and Osage counties.
It’s likely, too, the Foundation will continue to fund the program each year.
“I don’t think we’ve had a week like this before,” Lane said.
Furbur was known as Martha Mary Kruse when, as a post-graduate, she received a one-year library certificate in 1938 from the Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia.
She was so unassuming little is known about what her life was like when she lived in Emporia. She did, though, catalogue 6,000 volumes in the William Allen White library.
She worked throughout her career as a public librarian, ending at the Orange County Public Library in Santa Ana, Calif. She died May 9, 2006 in Orange, Calif. She was 92. Her husband died in the 1970s and she had no close relatives, according to ESU.
The attorney for her estate, Byron Groves, said she may have given the gift to ESU out of respect for her favorite teacher, Elsie (Howard) Pine or because of her continued relationship with the people of Emporia State. The library school is the only school accredited by the American Library Association in a 12-state area and provides the only doctoral degree on campus.
“You just never know,” Groves said in a prepared statement released by ESU. “You plant these seeds, and you never know where they are going to grow. I think she just did it because she knew (ESU) really made a big difference in her life.”
Furbur also contributed generously to other organizations.
- If you have a memory of Martha Kruse Furbur when she lived in Emporia, please call the Gazette at 342-4800 or e-mail roblez@emporiagazette.com.