![\"Henry](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Hoffmeyer.jpg\")
<\/a>Henry Hoffmeyer ’56 with his late wife, Polly.<\/p><\/div>
\nHenry Hoffmeyer\u2019s father died when he was 11, leaving his mother to care for five children under age 14 while operating a small dairy in Darlington.
\nAnd all of them attended college. \u201cShe did a great job raising us,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how she could afford to send me to Clemson, but she did.\u201d Hoffmeyer and his late wife Polly of Mills River, N.C., wanted to help other single-parent families afford college. They created an endowment for the School of Nursing to support tuition costs for students from Henderson County, N.C., with preference given to students from single-parent families.
\n\u201cNot many students from Henderson County come to the School of Nursing because of the out-of-state tuition,\u201d Hoffmeyer said. \u201cSo I decided I would try to encourage some students to come to Clemson by helping them and giving them scholarships.\u201d
\nIt wasn\u2019t difficult for the Hoffmeyers to choose Clemson as a beneficiary of their generosity. His Clemson roots run deep \u2014 even to the University\u2019s first days. Hoffmeyer\u2019s grandfather was a member of Clemson\u2019s first freshman class in 1893, and every subsequent generation has had a member attend Clemson. His father, Henry G.G. Hoffmeyer, graduated in 1919; his uncle, Herman F.L. Hoffmeyer, graduated in 1921; he graduated in 1956; his daughter, Suzanne Hoffmeyer O\u2019Donnell, graduated in 1985; and his granddaughter, Elizabeth O\u2019Donnell, began studies this year.
\nThe Hoffmeyers\u2019 interest in nursing came through relationships with family members. Hoffmeyer\u2019s sister graduated from the Medical University of South Carolina. His granddaughter is also interested in a nursing career, which brought Clemson\u2019s nursing program to his attention.
\n[pullquote]\u201cWhen I look at the need for nurses, there will be a great shortage of nurses in the future,\u201d he said. \u201cI just want to help get more students involved in nursing, because there is a great need for that.\u201d[\/pullquote]
\nHoffmeyer worked in management positions with Southern Bell for almost 40 years, retiring in 1993. The Hoffmeyers have three daughters and seven grandchildren. \u201cI\u2019ve been blessed in my life, and I\u2019d like to give back,\u201d Henry said. \u201cThis is a small way I can help nursing students from North Carolina attend Clemson, because I think it is a wonderful institution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Henry Hoffmeyer\u2019s father died when he was 11, leaving his mother to care for five children under age 14 while operating a small dairy in Darlington. And all of them attended college. \u201cShe did a great job raising us,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how she could afford to send me to Clemson, but she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":18499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[1091,1505,2116,3317,3320],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-18423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clemson-forever","tag-endowment","tag-hoffmeyer","tag-nursing","tag-winter-2018","tag-winter-2018-clemson-forever"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/01\/Hoffmeyer.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18423"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}