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Tuition times 16

By Nicole Sweeney Etter

Above and below: Pictures from the Wolff Family Band's promotional brochure. The band attracted international media coverage and helped finance several of the children's college educations.

You'd be hard pressed to find a couple more committed to Catholic education than Richard Wolff, Arts '52 and Grad '54, and his wife, Nancy. The pair met at Marquette and then sent 16 out of their 17 children to follow in their footsteps. The other child has Down syndrome and attended college closer to their home in Lindenhurst, Ill.

Trying to imagine that tuition bill? Then know this: The Wolff parents paid for almost all of it, other than some help from student scholarships and loans. Their brood of 17 musical kids turned into a family band that helped pay the bills.

Richard, who passed away this fall, first met his bride-to-be when they passed on the stairs in Johnston Hall. "I didn't have my glasses," Nancy recalls. "This boy smiled me at and I smiled back, and I turned around to my friend and said, 'Do I know that fella?'"

When they saw each other later at a mixer, "it was just like a strike of lightning," Nancy says. After a couple of weeks of dating, Richard proposed, and Nancy immediately said yes. She left Marquette to tend to her new home.

They were united by their strong Catholic faith. "He promised the Blessed Virgin he would name his daughters after her, and he did — all 12 of them," Nancy says.

There was another promise made, to each other: Their children would go to Catholic K-12 schools and then to Marquette. It was Catholic and Jesuit, it was close to home but not right next door, and there was no choice. "We were hoping that Marquette would be their way to understand God better," she says.

Julia Kearney, Arts '95, who is the third-youngest child, remembers it being just assumed that they would all end up at Marquette. "My first conscious memory of going up to Marquette was when I was 5 ... it was like I had been going there forever already," she says.

One time Richard started calculating the cost and realized it would reach millions of dollars. They decided to have faith that the money would come. "We don't even know how we did it ... we're not that rich," Nancy says with a laugh.

In addition to Richard's job at the U.S. Department of Navy Great Lakes, there were other sources of income: Nancy taught music classes, the kids had part-time jobs and claiming the children at income tax time yielded a refund hefty enough to pay the high school tuition.

Then there was also the Wolff Family Band. Specializing in Big Band music, the kids and their parents played the keyboard, bass, drums, trumpets, trombones and saxophones. The tuxedo-clad clan often played at Marquette events, along with weddings, conventions and other dances. The band's proceeds put several of the children through college.

Whatever the cost, Julia says it was nice to follow in the footsteps of her parents and so many siblings.

"Even if I was in a huge lecture hall, when my teacher called my name, out of 300 students, they already knew who I was. It was nice to know that legacy went before me," Julia says. "And now it's kind of fun too seeing my nieces and nephews having the same professors I did."

The full list of Wolff children who attended Marquette includes Mary Eloise Jensen, Arts '75; Stephen James Wolff, Arts '76; Mary Christine Foskett, Arts '77; Mary Therese Gilling, Sp '79; Mary Clare Patch, Arts '80; Mark Richard Wolff, Arts '84; Mary Virginia McCullough, Nurs '86; Mary Renee Wolff, Arts '86; David Francis Wolff, Arts '86; Mary Rebecca Grey, Arts '88; Robert Joseph Wolff, Arts '88; Mary Veronica Foskett, Arts '91; Mary Suzanne Burns, Arts '92; Justin Patrick Wolff, Arts '95; Mary Julia Kearney, Arts '95; and Mary Nell Wolff, Arts '96.

Are you part of a Legacy family? We'd love to hear about it. Go to marquette.edu/legacy to share your family's Marquette history.