The Erika K Scholarship reflects ERIKA KALITTA GILBERTSON’S lifelong interest in women’s issues and education, one that comes from her experiences in Germany following World War II.
While helping her mother operate an inn, Gilbertson was imprisoned and held in solitary confinement for four months by the occupying Russian Army. When released, she fled to the west at her mother’s urging. Her family was later left with nothing when the Russians expropriated the inn.
Erika, who met her husband Bob Gilbertson while he was stationed in West Berlin, came to the U.S. in 1955. She practiced interior design as Bob built a career as an executive with several companies.
Both became increasingly interested in women’s issues and education and established the Erika K. Scholarship in 1997 to provide full tuition and fees for non-traditional students who are women.
“My own education was interrupted. Rather than being dependent on someone or something else, education gives us the power to achieve, to make our own way,” said Erika Gilbertson. “It provides hope for the future.”
Like Erika Gilbertson, the education of RACHEL DAHL ’14 was interrupted: first by her mother’s illness and then from the effects of her own debilitating stroke.
When her mother was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) –Lou Gehrig’s Disease – Dahl withdrew from the University of Chicago. After caring for her mother for a year, Dahl joined the U.S. Army and trained as an aerial intelligence officer.
Shortly into her service and just two weeks after her mother passed away, Dahl suffered a severe stroke that left her partially paralyzed. She spent two years recovering from the physical effects. Overcoming the doubt and vulnerability caused by the stroke took longer.
Dahl moved to Winona to live with her father and returned to college for a short time at Saint Mary’s University. She left to work as a wine buyer in Madison, Wisconsin, and finally trained as a chef at the Culinary Institute of America in California. Still she hadn’t found the right path.
In 2012, the loss of a pet that had joined her for much of her journey caused Dahl to reassess. Everything told her to go back to school, to earn a degree, to become a physician and study neurodegenerative diseases like ALS.
At first, Dahl told herself no, that she couldn’t do it. She finally broke through the doubt and enrolled at Winona State with the help of the Erika K Scholarship. She’s earned a 4.0 GPA in cell and molecular biology. She trained as an EMT last fall and plans to spend the summer working in a research program and taking medical school admissions exams.
Dahl will graduate from Winona State in December. Of her struggle to get there, she says, “It took two years to recover, and it took 15 years. But it wasn’t wasted time. It led me to my purpose in life.”
