The Alice Gerig Martin Scholarship Fund

My grandfather Landis brought his family of 11 children, seven daughters and four sons, from Oregon to Indiana sometime around 1900 so that they could attend Mennonite schools. My mother (Ruth Landis) was the oldest of the daughters and went to Elkhart Institute, where she met my father, who was teaching there. They came to Goshen when Goshen College was founded in 1903.

My father, Daniel Gerig, was from Smithville, Ohio. He taught German and economics at the college and served first as registrar, then as dean until the school closed for a year in 1922 when I was about 12 years old. The closing was a very traumatic period for my parents, as their entire social and religious life revolved around the college and College Mennonite Church. With the closing the faculty scattered. My support for the college is in a large way in memory of my father and his years spent in service there.

My giving is also in memory of my husband, Dr. F.S. Martin, who graduated in 1929 and went on to Northwestern University Medical School. He always said his pre-med preparation at Goshen gave him a better background than most of his fellow students at Northwestern had had.

My brother, Daniel Gerig Jr., attended GC the year before it closed and then graduated from the College of Wooster. I spent my freshman and sophomore years at the college, then went to Bluffton College. (I might add that of my grandparents’ seven daughters, six of them met their husbands either at Elkhart Institute, the academy, or Goshen College, and three of their four sons—Meno, Elwood and Austin Landis—met their wives the same way.)

In writing this rambling letter I am amazed that my family’s ties to Goshen College go back over 90 years. I recently looked at some old Maple Leafs from 1905-1915 and was surprised how many students remained my parents’ friends and visited in our home when I was a child. Surely that’s one of the nice pluses of a small school—everyone knew everyone.

Originally published in the July 1994 issue of the Heritage Newsletter.