From Unexpected Pregnancy to Lifelong Impact: Family’s Gratitude Shapes Their Giving
What would you do if your 18-year-old daughter told you she was pregnant? For Pat and Roe Eidsness, a moment of panic swept through their family. They didn’t know what the future would hold, but they did know that they wanted their daughter to feel loved — no matter what. And they knew LSS could help.
“It was like a whirlwind. We didn’t really know what to do. We never expected this,” says Roe. “We just loaded up in the car and headed for Sioux Falls and never, never looked back. Our assumption was that the baby would be up for adoption. When Jill had decided to keep Dane, what gave us confidence that this was the right decision is we knew she had good counseling.”
Decades later, the Eidsnesses look back on this difficult time with gratitude for the support they received and the beautiful family they have today.
“We have this grandson — he’s 41 now — and it’s just been a joy,” says Pat. “It was LSS that just made that all possible because we knew it had to be Jill’s decision, and Jill had to know that she could raise this child. She was given all the information, and then she had to decide. LSS didn’t guide her one way or another. They just helped her figure it all out.”
LSS of South Dakota was founded in 1920 when a letter from the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America recommended establishing a home for unwed mothers and their children. The letter was shared with Grace Lutheran (now First Lutheran Church of Sioux Falls), whose positive response led to the creation of the Lutheran Children’s Home Finding Society of South Dakota, now LSS. Nearly 106 years later, pregnancy counseling is still an important service offered through the organization.
“My biggest fear, knowing Jill, was that Jill had to know that she could do it. And so that was a big part of what she learned through LSS. ‘What can I do? What opportunities are available for me? What help can I get?’” says Pat. “I’m sure I even told her one time, ‘You’re pregnant, I’m not. We’ll do all the things that grandparents do, but you need to know that you can do the things that a mom does.’ And that was really important both to her and to us, that she knew she did it.”
Pat and Roe both grew up in Sioux Falls and attended college in Minneapolis. They settled down in Brookings, where they owned a funeral home until 1993. Roe also has been a financial administrator at a Sioux Falls church and worked to restore his family’s farm.
Pat was a stay-at-home mom until their four children were all in school, but her career has taken several paths from owning a floral and gift shop and serving on the state legislature to working in youth and family ministry, becoming a mission developer and serving in intergenerational ministry.
Both Pat and Roe have served on LSS’s Board of Directors and the LSS Foundation Board as well. They also both have been mentors and helped with several significant fundraising efforts for the organization.
“We just have fallen in love with LSS. It’s just extended family for us,” says Pat.
Today, Pat and Roe are recently retired at 80 and 81, and their family has grown to include 14 grandchildren — 10 of whom have significant others — and 17 great-grandchildren. Each summer as many family members as possible gather together in the Black Hills.
“When our family was faced with a crisis, we knew about LSS through church, that’s where we had heard about it. And I’m not sure that it’s just that common knowledge in church anymore,” says Pat. “Wherever you are in the socioeconomic spectrum, LSS is there. It can be difficult for people to see themselves as someone who needs LSS. We know that we were there and so was LSS. It was right there to help us. That wasn’t easy, but it certainly was important.”
Pat and Roe welcomed their grandson, and their daughter graduated Cum Laude from college in three and half years. She is now a school psychologist and married with five children, two of whom are adopted.
The Eidsnesses made their first financial gift to LSS the year their first grandson was born and have donated to LSS every year since.
“It was a sense of gratitude because it really wasn’t on our radar screen up to then. But our personal gift and continued giving started out as a sense of gratitude for how they helped our family,” says Roe, as a father who’s seen the impact for himself.
“These are very challenging times,” he adds, this time with his financial administrator background coming out. “With other funding sources diminishing, it’s become more imperative than ever that families and individuals support LSS. It’s more important than ever that we as individuals support these ministries.”
Pat sees it through the eyes of a mom, grandmother and lay minister.
“One of the things that I think about is that we’ve been commanded — all these ways to help our neighbor, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner,” says Pat. “I think of the families in crisis these days. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to go and counsel a family that’s mired in debt. I wouldn’t have known how to counsel our daughter so that she knew she was able to raise this child. And I certainly wouldn’t know how to help a refugee family with a language barrier adapt to living here. But I can support LSS, which means I’m doing those things. You, too, can be doing those things and actually changing lives all across the state.”
In honor of LSS’s first donation day in the spring of 1921, which marked the opening of the House of Mercy, LSS celebrates its annual week of giving each April. The 2026 LSS Week of Giving is April 19–26. During the Week of Giving, all donations to LSS will be doubled thanks to generous matching donors. All gifts from new donors will tripled. Whether you can give $10 or $1,000, the LSS Week of Giving is the time.
“We are excited about this Week of Giving because it just gives each and every one of us an opportunity to be part of what LSS is all about,” says Pat. “And what LSS is all about is to make sure that here in South Dakota, everybody — every child, every adult of any age — is healthy, is safe and is accepted. And you can be part of that right now by joining us in this Week of Giving to LSS.”
