{"id":7266,"date":"2021-02-25T12:47:38","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T17:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=7266"},"modified":"2021-02-19T13:11:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T18:11:14","slug":"a-major-gift-from-a-special-former-faculty-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2021\/02\/25\/a-major-gift-from-a-special-former-faculty-member\/","title":{"rendered":"A major gift from a special former faculty member"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tetreault
Florence Tetreault in 1947, her first year as a faculty member.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Florence Tetreault was a unique woman. She lived quietly and
\nby her own rules. An alumna and former faculty member, she
\nworked hard and lived frugally.<\/p>\n

As a professor of Math, she extolled the virtues of compound
\ninterest and prudent investing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not how much money you make,\u201d she would say, \u201cit\u2019s how
\nmuch you can save.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over her lifetime \u2013 and she lived to 96 \u2013 she saved quite a
\nbit. She used those funds to create the Florence G. Tetreault
\nScholarship and left a very substantial gift in her estate plan to endow the scholarship, so generations of students can afford a Detroit Mercy education.<\/p>\n

Alan Moore knew Tetreault for more than 40 years. They met at a metro Detroit McDonald\u2019s where Tetreault was a regular and where Moore and his mother would grab a cup of coffee. The friendship grew and, while Tetreault was teaching, Moore\u2019s mother, a nurse, looked after Tetreault\u2019s aging parents. Tetreault\u2019s parents passed away, then Moore\u2019s mother, but the two of them carried on a friendship that led to Moore becoming the trustee of Tetreault\u2019s estate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called her my aunt,\u201d Moore said. \u201cAnd she said she inherited me. We talked three times a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tetreault
Tetreault, center, visited the University the year before her death accompanied by Alan Moore, left, and his wife, Rhonda, and met with Engineering & Science Dean Katherine Snyder, right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moore said Tetreault, who earned a scholarship to study Math at University of Detroit and was hired as a faculty member in 1947, never married because she did not want to give up her independence. Furthermore, she said she worked too hard to earn her doctorate to give up her identity to a man.<\/p>\n

To save money, she cut her own hair. When she ate out, it\u00a0 was usually a cheese sandwich and a water. She drove her cars for 15 years before replacing them and kept her home thermostat set in the 50s and piled on the sweaters.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a very, very tough teacher,\u201d Moore said. \u201cShe would tell me she had classes of 30 students at the start of the semester and that there would only be a few in class at the end of the semester. One time she flunked the entire football team.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was demanding, he said, because she understood the importance of education. \u201cShe devoted her life to the University and supported education her whole life,\u201d Moore said. \u201cShe always felt she had the greatest life and the greatest parents and wanted to pay back what she called her debt to the school for giving her a scholarship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tetreault was buried in her doctoral gown with mementos of the University alongside her. On the way to the cemetery, the hearse drove her by the home she shared with her parents for 70 years, then through Detroit Mercy\u2019s McNichols Campus where she had visited for the last time about a year prior to her death. At that visit, she toured the University, spending time in the
\nEngineering building where she spent many happy years as a professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we got back into the car at the end of the visit, she said to me, \u2018I\u2019m very pleased with what I\u2019ve done in creating this scholarship,\u2019\u201d Moore said. \u201cHer goal was to create this scholarship, but I don\u2019t think she had any idea how much of an impact it would make.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florence Tetreault was a unique woman. She lived quietly and by her own rules. An alumna and former faculty member, she worked hard and lived frugally. As a professor of Math, she extolled the virtues of compound interest and prudent investing. \u201cIt\u2019s not how much money you make,\u201d she would …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":7267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2021\/02\/Tetreault-inset.png?fit=183%2C237&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-1Tc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7266"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7273,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7266\/revisions\/7273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}