Donor News
Reeve Gift Caps Lifetime of Stewardship
Sheafor Bequest Secures Horizon of Leadership
Reeve Gift Caps a Lifetime of Stewardship
In the summer of 1944, a tall lanky seminarian named Jack Reeve met a petite but forceful recent graduate of the University of Colorado named June Varner. He was a native of Des Moines, Iowa, a graduate of Drake University, and a Disciples Divinity House Scholar; she was from Wichita, Kansas. The next summer, after he graduated from the University of Chicago, they were married. During the next sixty-two years, they would share many things: ministry in several places, the birth of four children and the tragic loss of one, commitment to family and to church, travel and service, and a love of music.
Stewardship was integral to how they understood the Christian faith and how they lived their lives. In 1958 Jack Reeve was called from congregational ministry and extensive work with youth conferences to the national staff as stewardship secretary. He continued to emphasize stewardship when he was called to regional ministry in the Christian Church in Illinois and Wisconsin in 1968 and, beginning in 1978, as Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Lexington Theological Seminary.
In 1968 he was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Disciples Divinity House. As its president from 1990-92 and as a longtime member of its development committee, Mr. Reeve provided both encouragement about and an example of generous giving. (Then, too, Board members knew how many Habitat for Humanity homes he helped to construct after “retirement”—so many that the Lexington paper dubbed him Habitat’s “energizer bunny.”) In 2005, Mr. Reeve was elected an Honorary Trustee for Life.
June Reeve worked side by side with her husband in these years of ministry and often attended Board of Trustee meetings with him. She was the first woman to be elected elder at First Christian Church in Bloomington, Illinois, and served for several years on the board of the Barton W. Stone Christian Home. She was an active member of the Christian Women’s Fellowship and attended all of the CWF quadrennial assemblies from 1957-2006.
As their children grew up and established their own lives and families, the Reeves reviewed their estate plan. They decided to think of sharing their accumulated resources in four equal portions, one for each of their children and another to be divided among two theological education institutions.
June Reeve died a year ago, on June 20, 2007. As Jack Reeve reviewed his situation, he realized that he could provide the gift (during his lifetime) that he and June had planned from their estate. And so, in a bold move, Life Trustee Jack V. Reeve has given the Disciples Divinity House $125,000 over the past few months. This gift caps a lifelong commitment to the Disciples Divinity House and a lifetime of generous stewardship.
“I am giving this gift out of my appreciation of the education received at DDH and the University of Chicago and the contribution it made to my many-faceted ministry,” Jack Reeve explained. “I have received more from DDH than my years on the board or my financial support can repay.”
Sheafor Bequest Secures a Horizon of Leadership
Rolland and Laura Frances Sheafor were convinced that “the Disciples House and the University of Chicago are uniquely equipped to provide a horizon and quality of education that can lay the foundation for effective leadership at the local, denominational, and ecumenical levels.”
The Sheafors themselves were particularly equipped to make such a judgment and to match their judgment with action. Two gifts from their estate will help ensure that horizon of leadership now and into the future.
Rolland and Laura Frances Sheafor were associated with the Disciples Divinity House for more than seventy years, from 1936 when they were married and Rolland began his studies as a Disciples House Scholar, through his service as a trustee until his death in 1996, to her memorial service in the Chapel of the Holy Grail this May.
Both were native Kansans. They met at Phillips University and planned to marry after graduation. Rolland had a nice fellowship from the Disciples Divinity House to pursue graduate study at the University of Chicago.
There was one big problem, though. Dean Ames would not extend the fellowship to married men (not to mention to any women); he believed they could not devote themselves fully to their studies. Not to be deterred, Rolland and Laura Frances eloped. That first year, she lived with her parents in Kansas and worked. The following year, Dr. Ames relented. The “newlyweds” Sheafor moved into a small walk up apartment near campus.
On Thursday nights, Rolland and the other “men of the House” gathered in the chapel to listen to the organ and then marched downstairs to dinner. Laura Frances took part in the weekly ritual by waiting tables.
The Sheafors developed a deep appreciation for the wisdom and guidance of Edward Scribner Ames as well as for the scholarship support that made their experience possible. When their first child was born, they named him Scribner. Their second child, Margaret, was born after Mr. Sheafor began law school at Ohio Northern University.
The Sheafors knew well what constituted “effective leadership” throughout the church. In the mid-1940s, Mr. Sheafor joined the Board of Church Extension where he shaped innovative investment and mortgage loan options. Named president in 1966, over the next thirteen years he led initiatives in supporting racial-ethnic churches and ecumenical ventures, in advancing technology and sound management practices among the Disciples, and with the New Church Establishment program.
“It is no stretch of the imagination to say that the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) would be a far different denomination without Rolland Sheafor’s innovative leadership,” Dean Kris Culp commented. “The church owes a great debt of gratitude to him and to Laura Frances for the partnership that undergirded and guided that work.”
Mrs. Sheafor also knew about leadership from her own work. She pursued graduate studies in education at Butler and Indiana-Purdue University. For twenty-three years she taught in Indianapolis public schools; she was also an adjunct instructor at Indiana University. She was active in Christian religious education at Downey Avenue Christian Church and, when the Eastgate Christian Church was organized, she developed its children’s department.
Finally, the Sheafors knew how to plan for the gift they wanted to make. Understanding how bequests and other planned giving instruments could help individuals and churches further their commitments, Mr. Sheafor had helped to create the Christian Church Foundation. The Sheafors later worked with the CCF to provide their own planned gift.
Initially, Rolland and Laura Frances Sheafor planned for the creation of a scholarship fund through a bequest. In 1995, they discovered a way to increase their commitment. By creating a testamentary family trust, they were able to designate an immediate bequest and also set up a charitable trust with income benefitting their children during their lifetimes. Thereafter, a portion of the trust assets will provide significantly more scholarship funds.
The first Rolland and Laura Frances Sheafor award will be granted to a House Scholar in the 2009 academic year. The Sheafors’ vision and action now stretch to the far horizon of leadership.
