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Rosen adds to scholarship fund

FAIRMONT — In the past six years, the Erma Rosen Nursing Scholarship has helped nine area college students achieve their goal of obtaining a degree.

Rosen is continuing her tradition of benevolence by donating an additional $100,000 to her scholarship fund, which is managed through the Fairmont Community Hospital Foundation.

Rosen, 96, had dreams of becoming a nurse, but her life situation prevented that from becoming reality. Living on a farm by Elm Creek on the Fraser Township line, life was a tough for her parents, John and Lennie Niss, and her siblings, she said.

“But I was raised by a very loving, giving mother,” Rosen said. “She would take care of sick people. She even delivered babies. I wanted to be like my mother. I always wanted to help, so growing up nursing was the one profession that caught my eye.”

Rosen attended country school, making the two-mile trek each day to get there, and then she attended Fairmont High School.

“We had no school buses so I stayed in a room in town with other girls,” she recalled. “I only got to go to Fairmont High for two years. I got sick so they pulled me out. I had shingles really bad.”

At the time, the country was slowly crawling out of the Great Depression, and like many others in that era, her family faced financial setbacks. Even if she had been able to finish high school, she had to give up on the idea of college.

“You know, I couldn’t do it because my folks didn’t have any money,” she said.

She worked at Fairmont Railway Motors, married and had two sons, Tom and Richard. She became immersed in school and church activities, running her household and occasionally helping out the family’s business, Rosen’s Diversified Inc.

Many years later, Rosen’s sons learned of their mother’s passion for nursing and suggested setting up a scholarship to benefit young people sharing her conviction.

In 2009, she donated funds to the Fairmont Community Hospital Foundation to establish the Erma Rosen Nursing Scholarship, opening the applications to students from Faribault and Martin counties who have completed three years of an accredited baccalaureate nursing program. Initially, the scholarship was intended to finance half the tuition for one student’s final year.

The first award was given in 2011 to Sarah Stocker.

“I’ve got a picture in my family room of the little girl that got the first one,” Rosen said.

Within a few years, rising college costs prompted the scholarship program to be altered. Utilizing only the interest from the initial endowment, it had become unmanageable to finance half a year’s tuition for one student so the total amount available was divided and awarded to two students. Last year, awards went to three students received scholarship gifts to assist in their final year.

With Rosen’s latest bequest, the award process again will undergo a change.

“We anticipate, with this gift from Erma, that we can either double the number of scholarships each year or double the amount that is given,” said Jane Kotewa, Foundation president.

Information on the scholarship and the application process is available at www.fchfoundation.com under the “scholarships” tab.

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