Scholarship Honors Storybook Romance

Their life together started in storybook fashion. Edith Stoecklein, a beautiful young German woman, meets Larry Suyama, a career Army man born and raised in Hawaiʻi, while stationed in Germany. They fall in love and get married.

Edith, who loved to travel, didn't hesitate to leave her native Germany when Larry suggested they live in Hawaiʻi. She would soon come to love and appreciate Hawaiʻi and all it had to offer. She returned to school, earning an associate's degree from UH community colleges and then bachelor's and master's degrees in education.

For more than 15 years, Edith taught in the Department of English of the College of Languages, Linguistics & Literature at UH Mānoa. Her compassion for students was evident. She raised concern that they worried about paying for school so much so that they were less able to focus on studies. Before her death in 2009, Edith shared her desire to establish a scholarship fund that would help ease some of the financial burdens that pursuing a college education can create for students.

In keeping with Edith's wishes, and in her honor and memory, her family established the Edith Stoecklein Suyama Endowed Scholarship for students enrolled in the College of Languages, Linguistics & Literature. The love story between this wonderful German woman and this Hawaiʻi boy continues in perpetuity, just like the scholarship.

The College of Languages, Linguistics & Literature (one of the four Arts & Sciences colleges) of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa offers a broad curriculum in English, foreign and heritage languages and literatures, second language studies, and linguistics. Its Asia and Pacific focused curricula is unique in the nation. The faculty regularly teaches more than 25 languages, and has the capacity to teach many more.