Celebrate Giving: Lifelong Friendships Leave a Legacy

Nursing graduates from the class of 1967 donned green and gold for their reunion last fall. Photo: supplied.

At 18, claire verschaeve, ’67 Dip(Nu), left her rural family farmhouse and moved into a large brick building in the heart of Edmonton, joining dozens of other young women at the University of Alberta nurses residence.

For a farm girl in the 1960s, it was one of the few pathways to a career, says Verschaeve. “The only thing we had to buy was a watch with a second hand and our white duty shoes. Classes, books, food, the nurses residence — everything was free.”

At the time, nursing students learned hands-on at the University of Alberta Hospital, working on the units under the supervision of their clinical instructors. “If it wasn’t free, I wouldn’t have been able to do it,” says Verschaeve. “My parents had no money.”

She and her classmates graduated as a group of 100 nurses in September 1967. They had spent countless hours eating, sleeping, studying and working side by side, and resolved to stay in touch. In the coming decades, they met every five years for a class reunion.

At their 40-year reunion, they found themselves touring their old nursing residence, reminiscing about the rooms they’d lived in as young women. Before they parted ways, they’d decided to support the next generation of nurses by creating the Class of September 1967 Bursary in Nursing. “The class of September ’67 is really quite special. We appreciate the fact that we had such good training and that it was free,” says Verschaeve. “Now, students are paying rent and buying books and groceries.”

The classmates contributed to an endowed bursary, where the U of A invests the donations and uses the interest to fund the bursary each year, ensuring the gift continues in perpetuity. The bursary is awarded every March to a third- or fourth-year U of A nursing student who demonstrates financial need and commitment to the field. What started as a $500 bursary in 2009 grew yearly, and the most recent recipient received $2,100 in March 2022.

“Nursing is an amazing career,” says Verschaeve, who retired last year at age 75. “We want to help nursing students today.”

This October, the September class of  ’67 gathered in Nanaimo, B.C., for their 55-year reunion. “It was a joyous weekend,” says Joan Douglas, ’67 Dip(Nu). Verschaeve updated her friends on the bursary and the student who received it this year. In the evening the classmates donned their pyjamas and gathered in their rooms to chat late into the night.

“I love my people — we have an amazing bond,” says Verschaeve. “Our bursary will continue on forever. It’s a real legacy.” 

If you are interested in starting a gift with your graduating class, please email Brianne Thomas at brianne1@ualberta.ca.