PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – Friends of Helen Forman now know why she was frugal. The late schoolteacher left $5.1 million to her alma mater, Rhode Island College.
It is the largest gift to a public college in the state’s history, Rhode Island College said on Friday.
“This is important for public higher education because it reminds us that private support is needed for public higher education, and it can happen,” said Marguerite Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island College Foundation.
Forman died last year at 93. Her late husband, Sylvan, was a railway and postal worker. They lived in a two-bedroom home in Providence and invested their money wisely.
Forman graduated in 1934 from what was then Rhode Island College of Education. She became a special-education teacher. Sylvan Forman, a graduate of the Bryant-Stratton College of Business Administration, “spent practically every lunch hour at the Providence Public Library researching investments,” Brown said. They bought and held shares of General Electric Co. and Procter & Gamble Co.
Helen Forman donated $250,000 to the school in her husband’s name in 1994 for construction of an admissions office.
The new gift will be used for scholarships for students studying music, theater and dance.
The Formans had one child, a son.
Rhode Island College serves 9,000 students. It is the oldest of the three public institutions of higher education in the state, according to the school’s Web site.
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Information from: The Providence Journal, http://www.projo.com/
AP-ES-10-28-06 1417EDT
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