The late Mary Marsh graduated from McGill University with a diploma of education in 1942.
Despite her death in 2017 at the age of 93, the former schoolteacher is making sure students from her alma mater are getting they help they need to succeed with a $4.8 million donation.
“She just had this thirst and passion for knowledge and learning,” said Marsh’s great nephew Rob Groulx, from his home in Ontario.
Aunt Marie, as Groulx fondly calls her, was also known for her great conversations, wicked sense of humour and for being “warm, spirited and generous.”
So it didn’t really come as a surprise to the Groulx family that Aunt Marie would make a posthumous donation to McGill University. It wasn’t the first time, after all.
In 2009, a gift from Marsh in memory of her late husband Walter allowed for the creation of three awards known as the Walther A. and K. Mary Marsh Bursaries, Scholarships and Fellowships.
Groulx said Marie would attend donor appreciation events every year and enjoyed meeting the recipients of those awards.
What did shock the family, however, was the size of the donation.
“We were stunned,” Groulx said, adding they had no idea what her estate was worth. “We never asked, we never spoke about it and she never talked about it. Not once.”
Groulx said Marie and Walter lived modestly in a semi-detached home in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood, where Marie taught Grade 1 to students at Rosedale — now Les-Enfants-du-Monde.
“They didn’t get caught up in the sort of need to have (mentality),” he said, adding their focus was on people, friends, relationships and helping others.
Marie was also very humble, according to her great nephew.
“She always wanted to help other people and did it in her own way so that it wouldn’t attract attention to her,” Groulx said, hinting that maybe that’s why she made the donation posthumously.
After winding down the estate, Groulx had hoped to tell McGill about the bequest in person, but the COVID-19 pandemic made that impossible and Groulx had to settle for a phone call instead.
After a few days of missed connections Groulx finally got through.
“There was just quiet on the phone, they were just they were stunned and in fact, she started to — I sense that she was actually weeping a bit,” he said.
Unbeknownst to Groulx, he delivered the good news on a a special day — International Teachers Day.
He thinks his Aunt Marie might have had a hand in how things turned out.
“How special is that,” he asked.
The university says most of the funds from Marsh’s estate will be used to “boost her existing awards, resulting in an exponential increase in the amount of needs-based and merit-based funding available to future educators. Another portion has been targeted to support students working on inclusive education projects.”
McGill’s principal, Suzanne Fortier, expressed her gratitude and thanked the estate.
“The bequest from the estate of Mary Marsh is a wonderful tribute to her enthusiasm for teaching and her dedication to supporting aspiring teachers, and will benefit generations to come,” she said in a written statement.
Groulx said he is only now beginning to understand just impactful Marie’s gift has the potential to be.
“If there were 40 student teachers that were affected by, you know, that were recipients of endowment funds, and each of them worked a 30-year career and each teacher had 20 children per year per classroom, that would be 24,000 children that would be impacted by the teacher,” he said.
“But if you think about the fact that the endowment fund will be perpetual and go on for years, even over like a 30-year period…that’s like almost three quarters of a million schoolchildren.”