Ramsey gift continues legacy of generosity

By all accounts, U.S. Navy Lt. Oliver Marion Ramsey had a promising future. He had been only 14 when he was named valedictorian of his graduating class at Fairchild High School, and he was only 18 when he graduated from Eau Claire State Teachers College (now the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) in 1933. Marion, as his family called him, then attended the U.S. Naval Academy and rose quickly to the rank of full lieutenant after his graduation in 1937. In the fall of 1942, he was right-hand man to Rear Adm. Norman Scott aboard the flagship Atlanta in the South Pacific.

It was Nov. 27, 1942 — which would have been Marion’s 28th birthday — when the Ramsey family of rural Fairchild received the tragic news. Marion had died Nov. 13 in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. He had been buried at sea.

Sixty years later, James (Marion’s brother) and Anne Ramsey of Longwood, Fla., have honored Marion’s memory in an extraordinary way. The couple has made a $1.5 million planned gift to the UW-Eau Claire Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence campaign to establish the Oliver Marion Ramsey Science Chair, which will endow a faculty position in the sciences.

“I want this to be a permanent and fitting way of honoring his memory,” James Ramsey said.

UW-Eau Claire Chancellor Donald Mash noted the significance of a gift to support a faculty position.

“This gift will have an enormously important impact, because it will allow us to serve more science students than we could serve using only our allocation from the state,” he said. “It also will enable science faculty members to more readily pursue research and professional development opportunities that ultimately enrich students’ classroom experience.”

Mash said the Ramseys’ gift is part of a legacy of generosity.

"Oliver Ramsey was generous in service to his country, and that is being memorialized by Jim and Anne Ramsey’s generous support of a faculty position at UW-Eau Claire.”

Back to planned giving stories page