{"id":3957,"date":"2024-10-01T14:35:35","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T14:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/?p=3957"},"modified":"2024-12-10T15:50:16","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T15:50:16","slug":"marilea-koch-a-life-legacy-dedicated-to-education-forming-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/?p=3957","title":{"rendered":"Marilea Koch: A life, legacy dedicated to education, forming connections"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marilea Koch\u2019s life was a testament to the value she placed on education and family. Through her estate planning, those deeply rooted convictions were more than confirmed, they were celebrated.<\/p>\n

When Koch passed away in January of 2024, the gift that she left to the SIU Foundation materialized, in the form of hundreds of thousands of dollars to establish the Edward and Elizabeth Ann Paddison Endowment Fund. Named for her parents, her gift funds scholarships for students who live in Illinois counties south of Interstate 70.<\/p>\n

\"Marilea
Marilea Koch is pictured at her SIU graduation in 1952.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Koch made her cousin, Carolyn Stubblefield, and her husband, Richard, trustees of her estate. They shared their fond memories of Marilea.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarilea valued education and wanted others to have access to books,\u201d Richard Stubblefield said. \u201cTo that end, she endowed a scholarship to SIUC because she wanted students to be able to afford a college education. She also left a sizeable amount of monies to her community\u2019s public library, and she made her church a beneficiary of her trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Southern Illinois, Koch graduated from the Goode Barren Township High School in Sesser. She then attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale, graduating in 1952 with a degree from the College of Liberal Arts. During her time at SIU, she lived in Anthony Hall (which now houses the chancellor\u2019s office) and developed lasting camaraderie among the young women who lived there.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarilea spoke fondly about her experience at SIU,\u201d Richard Stubblefield said. \u201cShe was pleased that she could compete at the college level after her experience of attending a very small high school in Southern Illinois. She also spoke about the fact that she would not have been able to afford and attend college had it not been for the teacher education scholarship that she earned by being valedictorian of her graduating class.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Marilea
Marilea Koch (fifth from left, plaaid dress) is pictured with her Anthony Hall housemates during her time at SIU.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After college, she began her career as an English and speech teacher, holding positions in towns throughout Illinois, including Polo, Lincoln and Hinsdale.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a teacher\u2019s teacher,\u201d Richard Stubblefield said. \u201cShe enjoyed the students that she taught and challenged those students to be writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family focus<\/strong><\/p>\n

Her parents, Edward \u201cNed\u201d and Elizabeth Ann Paddison immigrated to the U.S. from England as children. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a coal miner until he became water superintendent in Sesser. The couple eventually moved to Chicago for better job opportunities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cMarilea understood the sacrifice her parents made by leaving their home, family and friends to seek employment and a better life in order to support her higher education goals,\u201d Carolyn Stubblefield said. \u201cThe scholarship she endowed honors her parents\u2019 commitment to her education and seeks to enable young men and women with an opportunity to attend college at SIUC.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her final years, Koch composed two family histories, one for each side of her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith her parents being from England, any time one stopped by the Paddison home, the kettle was boiling for tea,\u201d Richard Stubblefield said. \u201cMarilea\u2019s extended family consisted of aunts, uncles, and cousins on both sides of the family, and she would always make time to squeeze in a visit with them or drop them a note, even in her retirement years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though she was born during the Great Depression, her parents made traveling a priority, which is something Koch continued into adulthood. She traveled extensively across the U.S. and Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarilea easily made friends wherever she taught and wherever she traveled,\u201d Carolyn Stubblefield said. \u201cShe kept in touch with those far-flung friends with her annual Christmas letter, which was both newsy and amusing. As her younger cousin, I always looked forward to her personal notes at Christmas because she managed to interject humor into retelling stories about challenging situations, whether they dealt with car trouble or with a classroom experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more about estate planning, visit siufgiving.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Wilson Marilea Koch\u2019s life was a testament to the value she placed on education and family. Through her estate planning, those deeply rooted convictions were more than confirmed, they were celebrated. When Koch passed away in January of 2024, the gift that she left to the SIU Foundation materialized, in the form of … Continue reading Marilea Koch: A life, legacy dedicated to education, forming connections<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3957"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4172,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions\/4172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}