1929 Methodist Loan Creates a Lifetime Relationship

The late Evelyn Steinmeyer Ozga kept in touch with Angella Current-Felder, executive director of the Office of Loans and Scholarships, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, from the early 1990s until her death in 2000. Mrs. Ozga wanted to make sure that other United Methodist college students received the kind of care and support that was critical to her college years, so she bequeathed $75,000 to The United Methodist Church for a special loan fund.

The money, which was sent to GBHEM after the death of Mrs. Ozga’s husband Frank Ozga in 2007, was used to establish the Evelyn Steinmeyer Ozga Loan Fund.

“You can go to any bank and get a loan, but when you get a United Methodist Student Loan, you get a lifetime relationship,” said Current-Felder, who recalled visiting the Ozgas in 1992 at their home in Cottonwood, Ariz. Current-Felder was accompanied by Cecilia McCLure, a writer for Interpreter magazine who wrote a story about Mrs. Ozga’s three student loans.

“She lived in the Wesley Foundation House at the University of Nebraska, and her campus minister helped arrange the loans,” said Current-Felder, who said Ozga’s story demonstrates both the importance of the loan program and of campus ministry. “She graduated in 1931 and became a math teacher.”

In the 1992 article, Mrs. Ozga recalled how much the loans meant to her. “After all these years, I remember clearly that without the caring of Methodists and the availability of loan funds, my life would have taken a different course,” she said.

Mrs. Ozga, who taught in Hawaii, California, and Arizona over her long career as a teacher, was dedicated to education and would mention United Methodist student loans in her annual Christmas letter, Current-Felder said. A copy of a letter Current-Felder wrote to her in 1992 relates how a man who read the 1992 article about Mrs. Ozga was inspired to send a donation to the Office of Loans and Scholarships.

“We spent the day with her and her husband, Frank, who made us the most wonderful orange rolls,” Current-Felder said. Over the years, the Ozgas would send their annual Christmas letter to Loans and Scholarships, and once, Frank Ozga even shipped the office a batch of the orange rolls.

“Mrs. Ozga was deeply rooted in United Methodism, she was wearing her Methodist sorority pen and the Women’s Society of Christian Service Pin the day we visited her. She couldn’t have gone to college without living at the Wesley Foundation House and getting the three loans,” Current-Felder said.

Mrs. Ozga was a native of Clatonia, Neb., and she requested that preference be given to loans to United Methodist college students from Nebraska, Current-Felder said.

“She really believed in our Methodist tradition of helping others pursue their educational dreams, and she was committed to passing on the help she had received nearly 80 years ago,” Current-Felder said.

*Brown is an associate editor and writer in the Office of Interpretation, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry.