May 14, 2010
The beautiful St. Boniface: The Adelaide Rosenberger Endowment
This is the view of the altar a visitor sees at St. Boniface Church in Evansville, entering the church from Wabash Avenue. Click for a larger version.
By LINDA COX (Catholic Foundation of Southwestern Indiana, Inc.)
For over 100 years, St. Boniface Church was home to a petite, humble woman named Adelaide Rosenberger. Adelaide, like many other women her age, grew up with the church and family as the center of her world. A gesture that Adelaide quietly made before her death will forever make a difference to the parish she recalled as so beautiful.
Adelaide Rosenberger was born in 1903. She spent her entire life and grew up in the neighborhood surrounding St. Boniface Parish. As Father August Busch, a family friend, describes it, “all of the families knew each other in the neighborhood and we were like a tight fitting group. We all went to school together, played together and attended Mass together. Everyone’s lives centered around their parish.”
Father Busch was Adelaide’s neighbor and his sister, Jane, was her life-long friend. Father Busch recalls picking up both Jane and Adelaide at Pine Haven Nursing Home in their later years and taking them to church.
Throughout her life, Adelaide was cheerful and upbeat. She lived a simple life and she always appreciated the priests and sisters of her parish. She never married and spent nearly half of her life caring for her mother and each of her four siblings when they became older. At the age of 105, Adelaide passed away and left a gift to her parish in her will. A gift that was not expected by her church but now seems quite logical since Adelaide always had such a love for her parish.
According to the pastor, Father Kenneth Herr, “Adelaide left a gift in her will to the parish with her only instructions that it be used for the maintenance and beautification of St. Boniface Church.” After considering her wishes, Father Herr and the Parish Council decided to permanently endow half of her gift so that every year a distribution would be available to honor her wishes. Her gift will make such an impact for the parish and for future generations. The annual distributions will be used to honor her wishes.
To Adelaide, St. Boniface was the most beautiful church in the Diocese and she wanted to make sure that others would have the opportunity to see the church as she had. She very eloquently left these instructions to Father Herr and the parish. They can be credited with making sure that the gift will carry out her intentions. An endowed gift is a way to leave a legacy both for the donor and the parish. Since it is invested, the annual gifts will grow to keep up with inflation and continue indefinitely.
It is hard to imagine if Adelaide realized the magnitude of this gesture. A gift given to her church through her estate will make a lasting difference. Although one never had a chance to thank her, perhaps her gift will inspire others to remember the value of their parish and the beauty of this gift. In her memory, the Ade-laide Rosenberger endowment will carry out her legacy and allow others the opportunity to recognize her.
If you would like more information on leaving a gift to your parish, please contact your parish or the Catholic Foundation at (812) 424-5536. For more information on establishing an endowment at your parish to honor or memorialize a loved one, you may also contact the Catholic Foundation at its website, www.catholicfoundationswin.org, or by email at lcox@evdio.org. A minimum gift of $5,000 is required to create your own legacy at your parish for your own intentions.