Jim Even (left), a 1978 DePaul alumnus and current learning specialist in the Center for Students with Disabilities, accepts his father's Purple Heart from Michael Frerichs, State Treasurer of Illinois. (Photo by Kelly Rutherford, Office of the Illinois State Treasurer)
Jim Even (middle), a 1978 DePaul alumnus and current learning specialist in the Center for Students with Disabilities, and Michael Frerichs (right), State Treasurer of Illinois, stands with Brandon Carroll, a student in the Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media, who enrolled at DePaul after four years of service in the Marine Corps. (Photo by Kelly Rutherford, Office of the Illinois State Treasurer)
The Purple Heart awarded to Jerome Even after he was injured in the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. (Photo by Kelly Rutherford, Office of the Illinois State Treasurer)
Operation Purple Heart, an initiative by Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs to return Purple Heart medals to their rightful owners. (Photo by Kelly Rutherford, Office of the Illinois State Treasurer)
World War II veteran Jerome Even earned a Purple Heart medal for injuries sustained during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He went on to graduate from DePaul in 1951 and built a career as an accountant. His son, Jim Even, an alumnus and learning specialist in the Center for Students with Disabilities, says his father’s military service and subsequent career in accounting helped shape his own life’s journey.
Now, thanks to an Illinois program that returns Purple Heart medals to their rightful owners, Jim recently held his father’s medal for the first time.
“When the Treasurer handed me the medal, memories of my father and conversations about the war filled my thoughts and created so many remembrances for my family that my dad would have liked,” Jim says.
Returning a purple heart
Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs started
Operation Purple Heart to return lost medals to their rightful owners. At a
press conference July 1, Jim received the medal and spoke about his father’s service and how it ultimately connected them both to DePaul.
“My father loved DePaul. He was welcomed here as a returning veteran from WWII. I love DePaul because of its Vincentian nature,” Jim says. “I retired from being a public school district administrator but decided after a few months retirement was not for me. I was thrilled when an opportunity opened at DePaul, and I could work at the school my father and I both attended.”
After graduating from DePaul in 1978 with a degree in accountancy, Jim followed in his dad’s footsteps as a certified public accountant. He then shifted careers to work in special education. Following retirement, Jim returned to DePaul in 2018 to work as a learning specialist in the Center for Students with Disabilities, where he assists many veterans.
“I never had the privilege to serve (in the military) as my father did, but I honor his sacrifice by serving veterans in a more minor, but different way,” Jim says.
To tell Jerome Even’s story though, one must go back to December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor military base in Oahu, Hawaii.
Honoring his father’s legacy
Jerome Even was on early morning duty with his fellow soldiers when they saw planes with Japanese insignias flying over the island going toward the harbor.
The group rushed to tell senior officers, but it was too late. Injured in the attack that day, Jerome received a Purple Heart, awarded to those wounded or killed in military combat. A U.S. Army Air Corps member who rose to the rank of Master Sergeant, Jerome also received an Air Medal, Good Conduct Ribbon, and the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Ribbon with four battle stars for his service during WWII.
After the war, Jerome graduated from DePaul and worked as a certified public accountant at Arthur Andersen in Chicago. His Purple Heart was placed in a bank safe deposit box for safe keeping, with a replica stored in the family home. The problem? The Even family didn’t know the original Purple Heart was in the safe deposit box, so when Jerome died in 2014 at the age of 92, the box was forgotten and eventually turned over to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office.
Serving today’s veterans
As part of Jim’s job at DePaul, he evaluates and assists current and prospective students who contact the Center for Students with Disabilities and helps them receive accommodations and other services. If a student discloses they are a veteran, Jim also makes sure they are connected to the
Office of Veteran Affairs as well as the
VITAL Program, which is a partnership between the VA Hospital and DePaul.
In 2023-24, DePaul had over 500 enrolled students who identified as having served in the military, which was the largest population of any Chicago university. In 2024, 114 veterans graduated from DePaul.
One of DePaul’s current student veterans is Brandon Carroll, a computer science major in the Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media who enrolled at DePaul during the COVID-19 pandemic after four years in the Marine Corps. He joined Jim at the press conference as a representative of DePaul’s Office of Veteran Affairs.
“When we returned to in-person learning, I was looking for a sense of community, and I found it in the Office of Veteran Affairs,” Carroll says. “It felt like home right away. I immediately got taken in like I was family. Veterans know what veterans need.”
In between classes, Carroll serves as the lead
veteran liaison, where he aids his fellow veterans in their transition to college and helps them feel a sense of community.
For Jim, DePaul’s work with veterans can’t help but remind him of his father.
“He would be 102 years old today if he was still with us, and he would be thrilled we are still honoring past and current veterans at DePaul,” Jim says.
Russell Dorn is a senior manager of media relations in University Communications.