On this day, January 5th, Bernard Daly died on a train bound for San Francisco where he hoped to be treated by medical specialists. Daly never made it to San Francisco; he died enroute, near Livermore, California at 5:30 A.M. on Monday, January 5th (yes, it was a Monday then too). On the following Sunday, a crowd of about 700, almost everyone who lived in or near Lakeview attended his memorial service.
Over the years, there had been much speculation about what Daly would do with his wealth. Everyone knew that he was wealthy, but the amount of his estate was a mystery. Since he never married and had no direct heirs, people wondered where the money would go. A couple of days after Christmas on December 27, 1919, just ten days before his death, Daly signed his will. In five typewritten pages, the carefully crafted will contained ten bequests and six instructions.
The first of the bequests were as might be expected: $1,000 to his brother and to five nephews and nieces; $5,000 to Pearl Hall (the love of his life) and a continuing $2,000 each year for the remainder of her life. Next was a bequest of $1,200 each year to the Lakeview Hospital for ten years, and a bequest to the Bank of Lakeview of the land on which it was located.
Following these bequests were instructions that revealed the heart of the will. All of Daly’s property was to be sold and converted into cash, invested in municipal bonds, and combined with Daly’s other investments and placed in a fund to be known as the Bernard Daly Educational Fund, the annual income from which would be used for college scholarships for Lake County youth.
I struggle to explain just how remarkable this was. At a time when almost no one went to college, Daly’s extraordinary act of generosity would make it possible for most Lake County high school graduates to go to college. There was no scholarship like that in Oregon or perhaps the entire country. To get a sense of just how extraordinary it was, the 1922-23 University of Oregon catalog identified only two scholarship funds available to students. One was the new Daly Fund that would provide full funding each year for four years to at least 15 students from Lake County. The other was a scholarship that covered room and board for one student for one year.
Daly’s scholarship fund was unprecedented, and the impact has been huge, changing the trajectory of people’s lives (and their families) for more than a century. During this year we can honor Daly’s memory and extend his generosity even further by sharing his story with a wider audience with a feature-length documentary about Daly and his scholarship. We have initial funding for the project but still have a way to go. Here’s how you can help.
- Make a donation through our GoFundMe web site.
- Donate by sending a check made out to: Daly Fund Movie LLC. The check should be mailed to Kathy Boespflug, 10416 W. Rockwood, Boise, ID 83704.
- Consider being an investor in the film (minimum $10K). If the film is profitable, investors will receive their initial investment plus a 20% premium and share of profits in proportion to their investment. (Please contact me (sam.stern@oregonstate.edu) if you are interested in becoming an investor in the project.)
Note: If the film is profitable, 10% of the profits will be given to the Daly Scholarship Fund.
