In gratitude, Eileen Pestorius ’61 eases decades of students’ financial worries
If you call Eileen (McGee) Pestorius ’61 on a warm summer afternoon, there is a good chance she will answer the phone as she’s heading out for a swim. And that she’ll laugh and share fun facts from her latest book of choice — in this case, 800 pages of Pulitzer-winning prose about Frederick Douglass. At age 86, she describes herself and her family as lively and fun: “If nothing is happening, we make stuff happen.”
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| Eileen Pestorius and other alumnae at Nazareth University’s 51+ club luncheon this year. |
But beneath her easy-going exterior lies a strong independence, wisdom, and a lifelong commitment to paying it forward — a drive sparked nearly seven decades ago on blustery street corners in Rochester, New York.
The gift that kept her in college
Long before she traveled the world, Pestorius grew up in Rochester and was a "day hop" at Nazareth College (now Nazareth University), commuting to campus on city buses and balancing her studies with shifts at E.W. Edwards department store. She knew since age 4 that she wanted to be a teacher, and becoming the first in her family to complete college was the path to that goal. At Nazareth, she studied English, with a minor in government.
In her senior year, however, she hit a massive roadblock. Student-teaching at Jefferson High School was preventing her from working her retail shifts. At the same time, her father was temporarily out of work, leaving their household of 11 scraping by on free government surplus food. Pestorius and her eight siblings pooled resources to help out, from her brother’s job at a bakery to her sisters’ babysitting earnings.
Faced with this financial panic, after “brain-racking” discussions with herself, Pestorius made a heartbreaking decision: She would leave college to work full-time until things improved.
She went to the Nazareth office of Sister Rose Angela Noonan, the formidable, stately dean of students known to remind ladies to always wear nylons and gloves. But when Pestorius explained her situation, the dean calmly reached into her desk drawer and handed her $50 — roughly $570 in today’s value — and repeated the gesture right before graduation.
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| Sister Rose Angela Noonan, dean of students, shown in 1958, gave Pestorius the help that kept her in college. |
"Those gifts changed my life," reflects Pestorius, who was inspired to become a consistent supporter of Nazareth in the 1980s. "I think it’s fabulous that I can help somebody move forward in the world. ... It always delighted me. Because I was helped, I guess I paid it forward."
A career built for constant reinvention
The diploma she secured at Nazareth with Sister Rose Angela’s support became her passport to a career that could move wherever she did. Pestorius married her husband, Mike, a Naval Academy graduate tapped for the submarine service. While Mike was often gone beneath the ocean, Pestorius ran the household, raised their four children, and adapted relentlessly wherever the Navy sent them.
Moving constantly meant constantly reinventing herself. Pestorius taught at every level from first grade to college. When a move to South Carolina forced her to take a national teacher's exam to prove her credentials, she didn't just pass, she scored in the top 1%. When she wasn't teaching, she collected licenses in real estate, securities, and insurance, while simultaneously serving on symphony, ballet, and civic boards across the country.
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| Pestorius with one of her paintings, commissioned by a couple to show their honeymoon spot, the Rocca Albornoziana fortress and the Ponte delle Torri aqueduct in Spoleto, Italy. Pestorius earned a master’s in art education at the University of Texas in 1992 and taught art at Austin Community College. |
Though she didn’t even see Europe until she was 37, Pestorius has since crossed the Atlantic more than 25 times, navigating stick-shift rental cars through the countryside of France and Italy. That same boundless curiosity has clearly rubbed off on her children and 11 grandchildren, who have traversed the globe from Switzerland to Machu Picchu.
A scholarship, trustee service, and a planned gift
Pestorius has never forgotten the institution that formed her into a lifelong learner. She returned to her alma mater to serve four proud years on Nazareth’s board of trustees before a move to London in 2000.
And she has repaid Sister Rose Angela’s investment thousands of times over. Through the Eileen McGee Pestorius Scholarship, she has provided critical relief to honors students facing the financial anxieties she once endured. For years, she cherished letters from her scholarship recipients. "It really was wonderfully warming to hear from students individually who were assisted by your money," she says.
Pestorius also has a planned gift that will significantly increase her scholarship fund in the future.
Still learning: her latest act as magazine editor-in-chief
Today, Pestorius and her husband live in a retirement community in Maryland, but "retirement" is a term used loosely. Recently, after the sudden passing of a fellow resident, she was thrust into the role of editor-in-chief for the community’s glossy, 36-page quarterly magazine.
With no prior publishing experience, she spent months swearing at her computer screen, learning layouts, managing a $6,000 budget, and successfully putting her first major issue into print — complete with her own paintings gracing the front and back covers.
"You can try to teach an old dog new tricks," she jokes. "It just takes a hell of a long time."
Yet, amid all her adventures and reinventions, her greatest pride is anchored in a single virtue: "I have a lot of faults," Pestorius says, "but I’m very strong in one virtue, and that’s gratitude. I really am."
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