She taught English and later became a school counselor. Her husband worked on the railroad, eventually as a purchasing agent for the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac. The couple retired in the 1980s and moved into her childhood home in a small town. Most mornings they could be seen heading across the street to the local library, where they read the newspaper together.

When she did drive, it was used vehicles a family member described as “old clunkers” that her husband picked up at auctions. She dressed nicely, but she was the opposite of “flashy.” For most of her life, she played the organ at churches as an unpaid volunteer. She collected and sold aluminum cans.

Then one morning, she called her alma mater and asked this startling question: “Could Longwood use a million dollars?”

 “The conversation was short. I was in shock from what she had just said,” remembers Linda Locke, Longwood’s gift records manager. “I think I just told her I was sure we could use the money and that I would get someone to call her back.”

The woman on the other end of the line that day in 2011 was Elsie Stossel Upchurch ’43. Her initial idea of a $1 million gift grew to $4 million after the advancement office staff proposed that she fund a new student center. It was the largest single gift the university had ever received at that time.

Mrs. Upchurch died on April 8 of this year, a few months shy of her 100th birthday, but she lived long enough to celebrate the 2018 opening of the Upchurch University Center, named in honor of her and her late husband, Norman. The thriving hub of student life is a constant reminder of Mrs. Upchurch’s devotion to Longwood.

 “The building wasn’t necessarily what her passion was,” said Courtney Hodges, vice president for institutional advancement. “She just wanted to help Longwood, and, at the time, the student center was a priority.”

Elsie Upchurch grew up in Front Royal, Virginia, where her family owned a factory that produced mallets—from judges’ gavels to hefty 20-pounders big enough to drive the stakes that held up circus tents. She loved music and learned to play the harp, piano and organ, becoming accomplished enough to play the organ for church services when she was still a teenager.

At Longwood, she was especially close to Sigma Sigma Sigma (known affectionately as Tri Sigma), which she joined as a freshman. One of the four sororities founded at the university, it was the only Greek organization she considered joining, choosing it for its high academic standards, the sterling reputations of its members and the group’s history of producing campus leaders.

An independent woman, Upchurch struck out for New York City when she decided to further her education, earning a master’s degree at Columbia University in 1948. She married in 1971 at the age of 51 and continued working as an educator at Westhampton Junior High School in Richmond, where she developed close bonds with her students.

“She loved helping her students,” said Bob Upchurch, Elsie Upchurch’s brother-in-law. “Even to the day she died, she continued to get letters and cards from students from many, many years earlier. ‘Caring’ is a very good description of her. She always wanted to help her students improve their lives.”

Hodges agreed that the desire to help was what motivated Mrs. Upchurch. “What was important to her was what her Longwood education had enabled her to do: help other people.”

Only after her husband’s death did Upchurch realize that she had the means to significantly help people financially as well as with her time and talents, Hodges said.

 “My brother was a good investor,” said Bob Upchurch. “Most of their money was probably made in the stock market. He wasn’t a trader—he was an investor. He’d get the dividends and roll them back into more stock. He also had some good-paying bonds in the 1980s, and he did well buying and selling at auctions. He had a good eye for value.”

After they retired, the Upchurches loved to travel, but they basically lived a frugal life. Mrs. Upchurch continued that practice after her husband’s death—one small exception being the purchase of her first new car since the one her parents gave her when she turned 16. She preferred to use the wealth she and her husband had accumulated in ways that would have a positive impact on others—even those of the four-legged variety. A meal was always waiting for the ever-changing contingent of cats that found their way to her home.

Mrs. Upchurch followed her heart with gifts not only to Longwood, where she endowed a scholarship in addition to the university center gift, but also to her hometown. In Front Royal, she gave the lead gift for a children’s garden at the Samuels Public Library; supported the new Warren Memorial Hospital and two churches; and bequeathed her home and the surrounding property to Randolph-Macon Academy.