The Elisabeth Huegel Nursing Scholarship: Empowering Future Nurses at Felician University!

Many scholarships reward college students either for academic achievements or prowess in sports. Then there are scholarships with a more pointed focus. Take for example, Felician University’s $500 Elisabeth Huegel Nursing Scholarship, intended exclusively for a single parent, specifically a single parent who wants to study nursing at Felician University’s School of Nursing. To understand just how special this scholarship is you first must learn a little about who Elisabeth Huegel was, and why her daughter Lori Stumpfol is providing this financial gift in her late mother’s name. “I believe one of the ways we can honor those who have passed is through prayer for their souls and through service in their name.”

Elisabeth Huegel was born in Romania in 1940. When she was two the Russians invaded, and the family packed up, initially planning to head to Germany. “My family always considered themselves German,” says Stumpfol, because of having a grandfather who was born in Hungary which at the time was part of the German Hungarian or Ottoman empire. The family made it to Austria, then immigrated to the United States. At barely seventeen Elisabeth found herself in a new country with a new language. She married, had four children, learned English, earned a high school diploma, and became a US citizen. When the marriage ended in divorce Elisabeth found work as a crossing guard and a nurse’s aide but held on to a dream of becoming a nurse.

Strumpfol is not quite sure how she did it, but her Mom managed to attend nursing school. “She must have gotten some help from Felician,” says Strumpfol. The four Huegel children attended school during the day at Botany Village in Clifton, while their mother attended classes at Felician College, and the family’s landlady helped with childcare.

Elisabeth graduated from Felician in 1980, became a licensed practical nurse, then a registered nurse who worked in the emergency room at Beth Israel Hospital in Passaic, work her daughter says she, “just loved, loved, loved. I’ve always thought about all those years that she only got sleep piecemeal, just a couple of hours until we had to do dinner because we always had family dinner, and she would tell us the stories of all the things that happened in the ER, she’d tell us these fantastic stories.” Then there was homework, the whole bedtime routine, and then Nurse Elisabeth Huegel went to work at night. “She worked very hard her daughter says.” After that she became a cardiovascular surgical nurse.

Elisabeth retired to Florida where she died last May after losing a battle to breast cancer. Lori says Elisabeth was very proud of her work as a nurse and always kept her Felician nursing pins and cap carefully protected. She says she knows how much of a struggle it was for her Mom to go through the rigors of nursing school as a single parent and thought what better way to honor her Mother’s memory than to help someone else who is driven like she was to become a nurse. To make that happen Lori says she plans to fund the scholarship every year for a single parent who is pursuing a career in nursing. “I’m hoping that this could be an opportunity for them. It’s not a lot of money, but it could be enough to help them.” I know my mom struggled as a single parent in order to provide for her family. It was a really big sacrifice for her in order to be able to go to school while she had four children and I’m sure there were times she was really torn about what she was taking away from her kids in order to do her career for the greater good in the end.”

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About Felician University

Felician University engages over 2,300 undergraduate, graduate, and adult students through programs in Arts & Sciences, Business, Nursing, and Education. Universal Franciscan values of social justice, compassion, and respect for human dignity serve as an inclusive foundation for transforming the lives of tomorrow’s leaders. Felician University’s education is ranked 3rd best return on investment for private colleges in New Jersey 2018 by the PayScale.com College ROI Report and is ranked #1 safest college campus in the state by niche.com.