Harvey and Clara Anderson Scholarship

Sometimes only a trip back into time can reveal some of the true heroes of an institution. Such is the case with this wonderful scholarship. Although they had no children of their own, the Andersons—Sven Hartvig “Harvey” and his wife Clara—had an interest in and concern for college-age students. However, it was their devotion to their Lutheran faith and the vision of a potentially vibrant Lutheran college in southern California that ultimately influenced their financial planning. CLC was barely a decade old and its future was still very much in question, but the Andersons trusted in its future. And so, they boldly decided to include the new college in their estate planning, which they undertook in 1968.
At this point the Andersons were in their 80s. They sought the advice and counsel of those they trusted—their attorney, the president of CLC, and CLC’s director of estate planning. The result was a trust, initially revocable but made irrevocable after Clara’s death in May 1968. Within that trust were shares of Walgreen and AT&T stock that, upon Harvey’s death in 1977, made this endowment the largest single provider of scholarships for many years. Through this vehicle, Harvey and Clara fulfilled their lifelong desire to provide financial assistance to academically capable students of high moral character. Probably due to their long association with Immanuel Lutheran Church in Long Beach, they expressed a preference for the scholarship to be awarded to pre-seminary students.
The story has another vital aspect, and that is the trustworthiness and integrity of those leaders at California Lutheran College who had the opportunity to propose a financial plan that would benefit both the Andersons and the college. Attorney Borgny Baird, CLC president Dr. Raymond Olson and director of estate planning John Nordberg all were instrumental in helping the Andersons realize their goal of an endowed scholarship, the Harvey and Clara Anderson Scholarship. They did their jobs very well.