Estate of former MacMurray chemistry professor leaves legacy at local food center
By Ben Cox
Photos/Ben Cox and Submitted to The Source
Dr. Nadine Szczepanski adopted Jacksonville as her home many years ago. She passed away on February 6 of this year, but her legacy of love for the community continues to live on.
Szczepanski graduated from MacMurray College in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and psychology.
“As a student, I found the campus to be beautiful and enjoyed meeting lots of friendly people,” she told Mac News, the college’s alumni magazine, in 2013.
Szczepanski’s passion led her back to her native home in Chicago to pursue her doctorate at the University of Illinois-Chicago, which she received in 1986. For the next five years, she worked for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and then for The Mead Corporation.
While at The Mead Corporation, Szczepanski secured a patent that helps the electronics industry create conductive films that are used in printed electronics, flat-panel displays and specialized heaters, among other things. However, it was the lifelong friendships and joy in Jacksonville at MacMurray College that brought her back to town in 1991.
As a Mac professor, Szczepanski shared her tremendous knowledge and passion for chemistry with several generations of students until MacMurray’s closure in 2020. While there, she won numerous awards for teaching and respect from her fellow faculty members at every turn. She was a fixture on the MacMurray College campus, commonly walking her dog, Jersey, whom she cherished.
Lori Degman, Szczepanski’s estate trustee, and Szczepanski were close friends for fifty years. The two of them attended MacMurray College together in the late 1970s. Degman recalls that her friend had tremendous emotional depth despite not always showing it, “Nadine was very intellectual and not too emotional, but very sensitive, like caring for others. She was just a very giving person, but very sensible. She was not willing to just throw money at something. She wanted it to be specific and make sure that it was going to good use.”
Degman says a big motivation for her friend to return to MacMurray was twofold — she wanted to give back to students and she wanted to travel. “She really got the best of both,” Degman explains,
“She was a great friend and great traveler. That’s why she gave up chemistry, which was very lucrative. Travel was such a big part of her life. She went to her last state in [September 2024], which was California, and the last state out of all 50 that she visited.”
Szczepanski was instrumental in student travel at MacMurray and with area chemistry students as well. She was a mentor for a number of years for the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad and served as a part of the organizing group for the associated international chemistry competition for high school students.
Szczepanski took a sabbatical year to teach at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and also, along with her dog Jersey, visited several medical facilities and colleges to provide support and comfort, as she had trained Jersey to be a therapy dog.
Degman says that after Szczepanski received a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, she did not retreat from her passions or slow down, remaining active while receiving treatment and looking into drug trials until she passed away in February of this year.
As part of her giving, Szczepanski’s giving spirit touched the Jacksonville Area Community Food Center. The food center moved in August 2023 from 316 East State St. after outgrowing that space.
The move landed them at 311 East Morgan St. in Jacksonville, in the former home of Production Press. The move meant more rent payments as a tenant, but the space allowed for better service for the food center, tripling its size. The move was also necessary.
Food insecurity in the Jacksonville area has more than doubled within the last three years. The Jacksonville Area Community Food Center has regularly sought assistance from government entities and the community to help pay for the food that they provide to members of the Jacksonville community with only just a few requirements.
The daily food distribution to those in need oftentimes stands in the gap for families who experience emergencies or for persons who are unhoused or on a fixed income.
Melissa Hall says that Szczepanski approached the food center just a few months prior to her passing to discuss needs at the food center. “Nadine came to me in February 2024 and just asked a few questions … what we needed, capital items, what was our wishlist … and then about July 2024, she sent me an email and told me that I had $2,000 to spend,” Hall says.
She says the state of the building and finances were in a state of flux when Szczepanski passed away after a fight with pancreatic cancer. Then, in July of this year, Hall says that Degman reached out to the food center with a letter and a check.
“The only caveat with the check is that we had to spend it on a permanent building,” Hall explains, “She was worried about us making rent, paying utility bills, all of that. She left us a sizable donation to be used for the purchase of a building, and that’s what we’ve done. So without Nadine, none of this would be possible.”
Hall and the food center’s trustees reached out to Mike Wankel, the owner of the building, and began the paperwork to purchase the back half of the facility. The food center will now occupy approximately 15,000 square feet of the building on the back half that faces East Morgan Street.
“Anybody that knows where we came from, what we’ve been doing and now what we can do, it’s just a blessing in disguise,” Hall says, explaining new possibilities for the food center’s services, “Right now, we just have a section of what used to be the old Production Press building. Now we are purchasing the entire old portion of the building, including a conference room, so we can have different things, meetings and storage. It allows us to expand and do a little bit more things for the holidays for people.”
Hall says that she’s already thinking about possible ideas for Thanksgiving and Christmas with the expansion.
On October 21, Jacksonville Mayor Andy Ezard, Lori Degman, some of the food center’s trustees, and a few of Szczepanski’s friends and former students gathered in front of the building for a ribbon cutting.
Ezard says the gift is the epitome of the Jacksonville community’s spirit of seeing a need and filling that need for the good of others. Adorned on the left-hand side of the door is the building’s new name, Nadine Szczepanski Building, to honor a legacy of love and generosity.
