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Librarian gives largest gift in ESU history

Behind an amazing gift from the late Martha Kruse Furbur is a simple story of saving and frugal living, leading to the largest single gift in the history of Emporia State University. Furbur left $1.875 million to ESU to support student scholarships in the School of Library and Information Management (SLIM), honoring her alma mater and providing for students in perpetuity.

Furbur, who came to Kansas State Teachers College for post-graduate work, catalogued 6,000 volumes in the William Allen White library before finishing her library certificate from SLIM in 1938. She spent her career working in public libraries, ending at the Orange County Public Library in Santa Ana, Calif. She passed away in May 2006 at the age of 92.

The gift’s benefits will span the globe, said Dr. Gwen Alexander, dean of SLIM, at a September press conference. “I’m sure she [Furbur] would be pleased to know that her funds are going to go to support scholarships for SLIM students,” Alexander said. “One of our exciting new programs is service learning opportunities in foreign countries, and we’re going to dedicate some of this money every year to funding students to be able to enroll in those courses.”

The school offers ESU’s only doctoral program, along with master’s and bachelor’s programs. The gift will benefit all levels.

ESU President Michael Lane chimed in on the gift’s international flavor. “The program that Dr. Alexander was talking about with international opportunities not only helps our students, but they often go to countries where developing the library system is a critical focus for their economies and their governments, so we’re actually having a dual benefit out of those programs,” he said. “The really wonderful thing about this gift, there are not a large number of library science programs in this country but the ones that are out there are really good, including ours, and this is going to give us an opportunity to really compete for some of the very, very best students in this country in the area of library science.”

Furbur saved and invested, living frugally for her own needs while showing her generosity to numerous organizations, said Byron Groves, Furbur’s estate attorney. She was born in Minnesota in 1914, and graduated from high school in Kansas City in 1933. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis before coming to Emporia for her post-graduate work. Her library career included stops at the Emporia library, the Mercy Hospital Medical Library, the Des Moines Public Library, Drake University, Kirksville College of Osteopathy and Surgery, and from 1962 to her retirement in 1973, the Orange County Public Library in California. Her husband, WWII veteran Roger Anson Furbur, died in 1972, and she had no close relatives.

The size of the gift came as a surprise to ESU officials, and even to Groves. She was recognized during the school’s centennial celebration in 2002, and ESU representatives did visit her at her home in California before she passed. Still, little was known about how strong Furbur felt connected to ESU. Somewhere along the way – perhaps it was her favorite SLIM instructor, Elsie (Howard) Pine – her continued relationship with the people of Emporia State University led her to make the largest gift the university has ever seen.   

“You just never know,” Groves said. “You plant these seeds, and you never know where they are going to grow. I think she just did it because she knew [ESU] really made a big difference in her life.”

Last Updated April 17, 2008