Remembering the College

While the College's fundraising for the year 1988-89 was setting a new record of $47.5 million, various components that made up that total also reached new highs. The Alumni Fund was one; despite a four percent reduction in the number of donors it raised $12.3 million. And the Bequests & Trusts Program was another, recording the largest annual figure since it was established in 1951-$15.2 million and nearly ten percent better than its previous high.

Of course, Bequests & Trusts, headed by Frank Logan 52, can t exactly set goals, or predict what the year will bring, even though discussions with potential donors and their representatives are an on-going activity. So the eventual legacy is often a very pleasant surprise.

This year, for example, the College received one of the largest unrestricted bequests it has ever received and it came from a non-graduate, May Fechheimer'33, who had graduated from Deerfield Academy and left Dartmouth during his sophomore year in the depths of the Depression. Back in his native Cincinnati he became an executive with a family business manufacturing uniforms. He served in the army and participated in the Normandy invasion. May Fechheimer died last fall; he and his wife, who predeceased him, had no children. It is likely that his $2.3 million bequest will be allocated to the planned chemistry building.

Michael Henry Ross '27, whose $2.5 million bequest to the College was the largest recorded in 1988—89, was born in 1904 in New York City as Morris Henry Rosenbaum and was known by that name until shortly after his graduation from Dartmouth. Subsequently he took graduate courses at the University of Michigan and the Sorbonne, then became a stock broker, a merchandiser, an executive with Decca Records, and finally president of the Knox Company. He died in 1985, a widower. His bequest establishes the Michael H. and Jean E. Ross Memorial Scholarship Fund.

One other major bequest received during the past year is illustrated in the photo, in which President Freedman is shown accepting a check for $500,000 from Judith Katz, daughter of Leon I. Rothschild '24. A lifelong insurance executive and an Alumni Award winner, Leon Rothschild was known as "Mr. Dartmouth of Southern California," active in recruiting, interviewing, alumni and club affairs for many years until his death in November 1987. His bequest was designated for a scholarship endowment for students from Southern California and is in addition to four "life income trusts" he had established for the same purpose during his lifetime.