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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, In 1946, an Iowa teenager, Verlyn R. "Swede"
3Roskam, saw firsthand how the world looks when a man shares his
4strength and his emptiness with something greater than himself;
5and
 
6    WHEREAS, In that year, Swede Roskam, who had been attending
7a private Midwestern residential school - Wentworth Military
8Academy - learned that he would have to depart from the academy
9due to unfortunate circumstances; and
 
10    WHEREAS, Caught in the madness of World War II, another
11Wentworth graduate had never come home; the family of this
12unknown American hero, with a name lost to history, stepped
13forward to underwrite Swede's final year at Wentworth with the
14faith that this promising young man would pay forward the
15message he had heard; and
 
16    WHEREAS, Swede Roskam progressed from Wentworth to Knox
17College, graduating in 1951, and from there to an even greater
18achievement, the love and hand of his lifelong partner, Martha
19Jacobsen Roskam; and
 
20    WHEREAS, In the upsurge of creativity that came after World
21War II, Midwestern businessmen discovered how to use the

 

 

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1chemical bonds found in clay minerals to create a wide variety
2of useful products; as an executive salesman for Oil-Ori
3Corporation of America, Swede Roskam was able to share new
4absorbent products with buyers around the world; and
 
5    WHEREAS, Throughout his business career, Swede Roskam was a
6loving parent to his 5 children, Stephen, Dick, Sarah, Peter,
7and Maribeth, and he was an upstanding and generous member of
8his church; and
 
9    WHEREAS, As his business career ripened and matured, Swede
10Roskam realized that the time had come when he could intensify
11the ability to work through the world to fill the emptiness of
12others; in 1982, aware that some private business firms were
13disposing of excess inventory made redundant by harsh economic
14conditions, he determined to create a matchmaking network in
15which useful private sector inventory resources could be
16donated, on a tax-advantaged basis, to post-secondary
17institutions of higher education on condition that the schools
18grant scholarships commensurate with the value of the
19donations; and
 
20    WHEREAS, This win-win organizational insight, initially
21implemented with the help of Illinois distribution firm W.W.
22Grainger, generated Educational Assistance Ltd., the
23nationwide helping organization that has played a role in the

 

 

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1granting of aid to more than 10,000 students across America;
2and
 
3    WHEREAS, Continuing their business work, Swede and Martha
4Roskam opened new markets for American-invented products in Ho
5Chi Minh City, the former Saigon; and
 
6    WHEREAS, In 2002, Martha saw a basketful of military dog
7tags that were being sold as war memorabilia; Swede"and Martha
8impulsively bought the entire basket, making it the foundation
9of the Roskam Dog Tags Project, Martha's and Swede's more than
105-year-long project to track down and return the tags to the
11veterans or their surviving families; and
 
12    WHEREAS, Swede Roskam was more than qualified to help
13Martha support his fellow American veterans, having served - as
14a young college graduate - as a company commander in the Korean
15War; and
 
16    WHEREAS, Although Swede Roskam was repeatedly honored by
17the Republic of Korea, his fellow veterans, his company, and
18his church, he repeatedly denied any claim to special pride or
19honors, pointing to the support he had been given by special
20people throughout the years and the need for him to pay it
21back; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, Swede Roskam further felt that although he had
2been blessed with an abundant life, far more important as a
3blessing were the lives of his 5 children and their spouses, of
4Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington, and their 17
5grandchildren; and
 
6    WHEREAS, Swede's son, Congressman Peter Roskam of
7Illinois' 6th District, recalls his father's words that "Life
8is choices - make good choices"; and
 
9    WHEREAS, Peter Roskam has testified that Swede Roskam
10"lived an abundant life. His love for God was the foundation
11upon which his life was built"; therefore, be it
 
12    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
13NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we
14mourn the death of Verlyn "Swede" Roskam of Wheaton, Illinois,
15a Christian man, and an American; and be it further
 
16    RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution should be
17presented to Verlyn R. "Swede" Roskam's wife, Martha Jacobsen
18Roskam; to his son and daughter-in-law, Stephen and Chandler
19Roskam, of Oak Park; to his son and daughter-in-law, Dick and
20Phyllis Roskam, of Indianapolis, Indiana; to his daughter,
21Sarah Roskam, of Seattle, Washington; to his son and
22daughter-in-law, Peter and Elizabeth Roskam, of Wheaton; and to

 

 

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1his daughter and son-in-law, Maribeth and Jon Coote of
2Rogersville, Pennsylvania.