The Lawrence University Development Office received a bequest for $2.5 million dollars from Marjorie Freund at the end of last term.The estate of Ms. Freund, who passed away on Dec. 30, 2000 at age 87, made the lump sum bequest of $2,523,647 with the request that it be added to the endowment and earmarked for scholarships in Ms. Freund’s name for students demonstrating financial need, according to Greg Volk, Vice President for Development and External Affairs. No other qualifications were specified in the bequest.
Ms. Freund, originally of Seymour, WI, graduated from Lawrence in 1935 with a B.A. in history. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
After graduation, Freund took a degree in public law at Columbia in New York. She served as a librarian at the Library of Congress for 12 years before eventually beginning a career as a librarian for the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington D.C. in 1948. She retired from the CIA in 1979.
Freund did not marry and had no children.
Freund’s gift came as a pleasant surprise to Lawrence. According to Volk, Freund was a regular annual contributor to Lawrence, but was not particularly active with alumni groups. The development office had no idea that she intended such a generous bequest.
The gift will provide about $125,000 of scholarships annually, reported the Appleton Post-Crescent in its Dec. 6, 2001 edition, shortly after Lawrence received Freund’s gift.
The amount of the bequest was the largest single bequest from an individual for a scholarship fund, though not the largest individual bequest, said Volk. The estate of Ethel Barber, a graduate of Milwaukee Downer College, made a gift in the amount of $8 million for the theatre program two years ago.
According to the Appleton Post-Crescent, Freund made a similar gift to Columbia University.