It’s a small thing I can do.” This is how Ralph Schwark, a retired WELS member living in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, describes the Schwark Family Fund. This fund supports the work of the library of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

Well, the fund might have started small, but it’s not small anymore.

Many years ago, after Ralph’s father was called home to heaven, his mother was deciding what to do with gifts of money given in her husband’s memory. She decided to combine these memorial gifts into a trust fund. The fund, she decided, would be used to help the seminary library.

Why the seminary library? Ralph’s brother had studied at the seminary. The Schwark family was grateful for the training he and other pastors received there, and they knew that the library played a vital role in that training. His brother had once taken Ralph on a tour of the seminary, and the library had piqued his interest. The rows of books reminded Ralph of his own fondness for reading, and so, when the opportunity for giving a special gift arose, the seminary library was a natural choice to receive it.

When Ralph’s mother died, he had the responsibility to handle gifts given in her honor. He used them to rejuvenate the Schwark Family Fund.

During the following years, a little at a time, contributions were made, and the fund grew steadily. Ralph again added to it after the loss of his wife. This time it was not only memorial gifts but also a part of his wife’s estate that he contributed to it. And when one of Ralph’s sons went to be with the Lord, the fund grew again when a portion of his estate was directed there.

Something that started small, a fund begun with small gifts in sympathy cards, is not so small anymore.

The Schwark family has long supported the public ministry and encouraged people to study with the aim of serving one day. This steady encouragement has borne fruit. Ralph has had two sons who became pastors, and he has a granddaughter who is a teacher in a Lutheran school. The family fund, then, is one of several ways that this family expresses their love for the Lord and supports his work.

Jonathan Micheel teaches courses in preaching and church history at the seminary.