Jim Evers, director of development at The Salvation Army, left, thanks Robert Willingham, Cape Girardeau, Mo., after a ceremony in which the estate of Willingham's parents, John and Yvonne Willingham of Lawrence, gave more than 17,000 to the Salvation Army, Wednesday, March 30, 2016 at The Salvation Army, 946 New Hampshire Street. Robert Willingham attended the ceremony along with Salvation Army leaders and other relatives and friends of the Willinghams.

Long before becoming an English professor at Kansas University, John Willingham was the child of a single mother during the Great Depression.

Those who knew Willingham said it was the people in despair and the compassion others showed them he observed back then that inspired him to make a large contribution to the Salvation Army of Douglas County, which he instructed to be done from his estate 10 years after his death.

On Wednesday, relatives and friends of Willingham gathered at the Salvation Army, 946 New Hampshire St., to announce a $217,600 gift from the estate of Willingham and his late wife, Yvonne, of Lawrence.

Salvation Army Maj. Douglas Rowland called the size of the gift “very significant” for the charity.

“This gift is a blessing to God,” Rowland said. “It is given to others that they might be blessed, and through that, God will be blessed.”

Jim Evers, director of development at The Salvation Army, left, thanks Robert Willingham, Cape Girardeau, Mo., after a ceremony in which the estate of Willingham's parents, John and Yvonne Willingham of Lawrence, gave more than 17,000 to the Salvation Army, Wednesday, March 30, 2016 at The Salvation Army, 946 New Hampshire Street. Robert Willingham attended the ceremony along with Salvation Army leaders and other relatives and friends of the Willinghams.

Willingham was born in 1919 in Quinlan, Texas.

His father died in 1924, leaving his mother to raise Willingham and his three siblings, said Willingham’s son Robert Willingham of Cape Girardeau, Mo.

“A few years later the Great Depression began and affected everybody, one way or another,” Robert Willingham said.

Not only did John Willingham see people suffer, his son said, he saw the “very good work” that the Salvation Army did.

Willingham worked two jobs to put himself through college, and was grateful for the National Youth Administration, a New Deal program that helped enable him to do so, relatives said.

The Willinghams worked hard, made an honest living and spent wisely, relatives said.

“John Willingham knew about growing up poor and being vulnerable,” said niece Elaine Schoyen of Great Falls, Montana.

Schoyen said the Willinghams were appreciative of their own good fortune and wanted to help people who may not have the means to succeed now but, with help, could do so in the future.

Relatives, including grandchildren, also described the Willinghams as being a lot of fun, with a whimsical sense of humor and constant banter between them.

They were born just one day apart in July 1919 — she on the 14th and he on the 15th. They died less than a year apart, both at age 86 — she in July 2005he in February 2006, according to their obituaries.

Yvonne Willingham was associate director of the University Press of Kansas, retiring in 1985.

John Willingham also retired from KU in 1985. He had been a professor at KU since 1961, teaching courses in American literature and literary criticism and serving as director of freshman-sophomore English.