29 Dec Millicent Atkins – The Invisible Benefactor
If a few mysteries remain concerning a South Dakota woman named Millicent Atkins, at least two details are clear.
She was generous, and she knew how to manage farmland.
Her death at age 93 has left an inheritance of an estimated $37.5 million in the laps of three unsuspecting beneficiaries.
It also has brought her a measure of public notice in death that she evidently wished to avoid in life.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a journal in Washington, D.C., this week placed Atkins on its list of the top 50 most generous Americans.
The list covers donations last year. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are first for giving away $992 million last year. Michael Bloomberg, once mayor of New York, ranks fourth. Paul Allen, whose Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl last week, is No. 11. T. Denny Sanford, the Sioux Falls banker and namesake of Sanford Health, checks in at No. 20.
Atkins rounds out the list at No. 50. Her presence there with Sanford makes South Dakota one of only six states with multiple entries and the only Upper Plains state with any at all.
She was born in 1919 to Fred and Blossom Atkins and grew up in Columbia in rural Brown County northeast of Aberdeen. She was an only child and never married or had any children of her own. When she died in summer 2012, her will directed her wealth three places. One was the University of Minnesota, which she attended briefly. Another is what then was Northern State College in Aberdeen, where she earned a degree. The third was a tiny fellowship in her hometown, the Columbia Congregational Church. Atkins was a resident of Ipswich, a town west of Aberdeen and 40 miles from Columbia, at the time of her death.
Her wealth is in the form of farmland she acquired through the years in Brown County, a little more than 4,000 acres total. The will included a 10-year proviso that gives the three beneficiaries annual earnings from her holdings and then the bulk of the inheritance when the land is sold beginning in 2022.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy estimated that to be worth $12.5 million for each of the two universities and the church.
“Obviously, it’s the greatest gift we’ve received,” said Todd Jordre, president and CEO of the Northern State University Foundation. “We’ll have interest from the trust awarded the next eight years, then final distributions.”
Jordre never met Atkins. He learned about the donation when her will was settled last spring. Northern State had recently finished a $29 million fund drive that had occupied the foundation’s energy for seven years when a letter arrived. It came to the foundation’s accountant, Becky Mehlhoff.
“She opened it and ran into my office and said, ‘Take a look at page X,’ ” Jordre said.
Atkins had tenants farm the land. She oversaw the operations and bought more land as earnings allowed.
“She lived very frugally,” Jordre said. “There are stories that she might come into the bank or in for supper someplace in farm clothes. She was very low key, never had a fancy car or pickup, was very much under the radar.”
Columbia is a town of 137 people with a bank and a café that posts a “hunters welcome” sign. A favorite son, Kermit Wahl, born in 1924, hit three home runs in a five-year big-league baseball career that ended in 1951 with the St. Louis Browns.
Martha Douglas, director of development communications at the University of Minnesota, said news of the gift was a complete surprise. Atkins was at the college only during the 1937-38 school year.
“Why did Millicent go to school here and why did she not finish?” Douglas said. “People said she enjoyed the time here but got homesick.”
Atkins’s mother, Blossom Gibson, also went to the University of Minnesota as well and graduated in 1905. Perhaps that was the $12.5 million link.
“I find it amazing people … go off and don’t necessarily keep in touch, but there’s a soft spot on their heart that stays with the university. We think part of her choice of the University of Minnesota was to honor her mother,” Douglas said.
Maria DiMento, writing in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said Atkins’s bequest to the Columbia Congregational Church “was a surprise since she had not attended services there regularly in more than 50 years.”
Mike Kampa, council chairman for the church, said the fellowship has 25 to 30 members. He declined comment on the church’s reaction to gift or how the money specifically would be used.
“It’s a wonderful gift, an amazing blessing,” Kampa said. “We continue to work together as a congregation to carry out our duties as Christian stewards of the gift.”
Source: https://eu.argusleader.com/story/news/2014/02/15/sd-farm-wifes-most-generous-legacy-375-million/5505801/
