Kay Bandelier Gorsline Scholarship Fund

Kay Bandelier Gorsline left the Goshen community soon after graduating from high school. Although she knew a few college students, she was not well acquainted with Goshen College or the Mennonite Church that supported it. Despite these beginnings, however, Mrs. Gorsline and the college have become “friends” in her later years, and many Goshen students will be the beneficiaries of this relationship in the years to come.

Mrs. Gorsline was a popular and active student at Goshen High School more than 50 years ago. Retired Goshen College professor Roy Umble, a classmate, remembers that she was “an excellent student, who was very involved in dramatics.” She also participated in athletics, often using the college’s tennis courts to sharpen her skills.

After attending a business school in South Bend, Mrs. Gorsline moved to Chicago, where she had an interesting and varied career working for the following corporations; Allied Mills, Inc.; Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne, Inc., an advertising corporation; Chicago Sun-Times and WFLD, a television station owned by Field Enterprises. On a train trip to New Mexico for health reasons in 1939, she met and later married Frank Gorsline, a prominent Chicago area banker. The couple greatly enjoyed travel and took trips overseas each year. Mr. Gorsline died in 1957.

While she continues to live in Chicago in retirement, Mrs. Gorsline has chosen to remember her Goshen “roots” by supporting Goshen College through her estate. She has given her financial gift in honor of her father William, a well-known Goshen policeman who also spent many years as a salesman for Yoder Monument Works.

Mr. Bandelier himself, who came to Goshen from nearby Ligonier, had a fascinating youth. At age 16, after convincing an older brother to sign the necessary papers, he ran off to participa in the Spanish-American war and later saw duty in the Philippines. Upon his return to Goshen, he was very active in the local VFW and Memorial Day activities, and was given a military funeral at his death in 1938.

Goshen College and its students are grateful for the generous support of Kay Bandelier Gorsline, who took special initiative in renewing her ties with an institution from which she had been separated by many years and miles.