Woven Together by Love and Faith: The Story of Jim and Elaine

Once upon a time, in a small town not far from the banks of the Chippewa River, Jim Ellenson and Elaine Roosa arrived in Eau Claire as young college students, fresh-faced and earnest, with lives stretching before them. It was the 1950s for Jim, 1960 for Elaine, back when downtown Eau Claire had just a handful of stoplights and Christ Church Cathedral was a grand stone building on Farwell Street with doors wide open to anyone who might wander in.

Jim was a quiet sort, a young man of decent Midwest stock who worked as hard as he could at his studies. But one chilly autumn, money ran out, and he faced the hard fact of dropping out. He trudged to church that Sunday, heavy with the weight of it all, only to find the Dean himself, Gordon Brandt, waiting by the chapel door with a warm handshake and a keen eye for troubled students. When he found out that Jim was thinking of leaving school, he did something remarkable: he reached into his discretionary fund and pulled out $150 to keep him in classes. “No strings attached,” he said. Just one friend helping another. Years later, Jim tried to repay the kindness, but Dean Brandt just smiled and said, “Jim, it was a gift.” Well, Jim knew that, but he couldn’t resist, handing over that repayment with a nod, saying, “Maybe someone else needs it now.”

Meanwhile, young Elaine Roosa had come to Eau Claire for her own reasons. She was a reader, a lover of ideas and debates, and one day while flipping through the university handbook, she saw that the Canterbury Club was meeting that week. “Why not?” she thought, picturing tea and conversation, perhaps a bit of C.S. Lewis. Little did she know she’d find Jim there—handsome, earnest, the club president, and himself a great fan of Lewis. She joined the study group in the Buffington Home dining room, where the walls were thick with the smell of wood polish and old books, and they talked about “The Screwtape Letters,” the kind of book that made you laugh and think at the same time.

During Lent, they’d climb down to the little basement chapel for services, led by Fr. Robert Leve. It was just down the outside staircase, and a slight draft would whistle through the chapel, but nobody much minded. After all, they were young and in good company, sitting in the candlelight, reciting the words that had brought them together in the first place. Now, Elaine wasn’t one to sit back and wait for life to find her. She rather liked Jim and wasn’t about to let a little shyness get in the way. So, one sunny day, the Canterbury Club had a picnic in the park, and Elaine, with a twinkle in her eye, pointed to a green Cadillac in the parking lot. “That’s my car,” she said with a casual wave, though she didn’t even own a bicycle. When it came time to leave, she confessed that, actually, she had no way home. Jim took her hand, smiled, and brought her to the Blugold Room, where he bought her a Coke and asked if she might join him for a double date sometime. She said yes.

And so it began. They became regulars at the dances held in the basement of the Wilson Building, tasked with chaperoning the young students and enforcing the six-inch rule between dancers—a rule they themselves were known to forget from time to time. As the years went on, they became more than just dance chaperones and Canterbury members. They taught Sunday school together at Christ Church Cathedral, Jim handling the sixth graders and Elaine the third graders, under the kind eye of Jo Gow, the superintendent. They found that teaching children brought out something special in each of them, maybe a bit of that joy and whimsy they’d known as young people, now passing it down to others.

It was the fall of 1962, on their second date, when Jim took Elaine out to Menomonie, where Bundy Hall sat grand and slightly worn around the edges, like a grand old aunt. They walked in the woods, the air heavy with the scent of fallen leaves and woodsmoke, and Jim said, “If I could live anywhere, I’d choose here.” There was something timeless about Bundy Hall, something that appealed to his heart, which loved the past as much as the present. And then, in 1970, on a December afternoon during a Christmas tea at Christ Church, Bishop Atkins approached Elaine. He leaned in and asked if they would consider becoming the caretakers of Bundy Hall, to live there with their three young children, and to tend to its rooms and grounds as if it were their own. It was, in Jim’s words, a dream realized, the kind of gift that arrives quietly, dressed as an opportunity but wrapped in grace. By the first of the year, they had accepted.

Jim and Elaine raised their family at Bundy Hall, watching the seasons turn over the hills, raising children who ran through the same halls where, as students, they’d once shared whispers and laughter. And they remained part of the parish at Christ Church, the heart of their faith and the place where, long ago, they’d found each other. They still sit together at church, a little older, maybe a little slower, but no less full of the quiet joy that brought them together. And as they share this story, with its laughter and memories, they remember that $150, the Canterbury Club, the dances, the chapel, and those steps down into the basement—all pieces of a life woven together by love, faith, and a good dash of adventure.