F1RST - The Magazine of Carroll University Spring 2022

GERT ULLSPERGER 1926-2022

She was Carroll’s substitute grandmother, a sweet and sunny presence in the lives of Carroll students for more than 50 years.

Gert Ullsperger, who passed away in January of this year, came to work in Carroll’s dining room one day in 1964 to help out a neighbor and stayed on the job for the next 56 years. “I had such a good time doing it,” she told an interviewer last year. “It’s been a wonderful journey from that day right up to now.”

In recent years, Gert dispensed smiles, hugs and comfort from her station at the dining room entrance, officially renamed the Gert Ullsperger Dining Room in 2018.

“Gert taught us how to be kind, to lead with love and to always laugh,” recalled Carroll President Dr. Cindy Gnadinger. “Generations of Carroll students, faculty, staff and community members now carry the memories of her smiles, her whispered encouragements, her warmth and, yes, her wonderful hugs, with them. What a wonderful legacy!”