After William Denison Williams graduated Union College in 1932, he didn't forget his alma mater. The retired General Electric engineer gave a modest gift to the school every year and attended reunions. In 1987, he donated a copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe's “Men of our Times” to the library.
The school's fundraisers hardly considered Williams a big fish.
That is, until Williams, who died in October, left a quarter of his $20 million estate to Union — a gift that arrived out of the blue. “He was a regular donor to the annual fund, at a nice level but not a major gift level,” said Tom Gutenberger, Union's vice president of college relations. “It's a fantastic surprise to get.”
The $5 million gift will be used to endow a pair of professorships. Union officials have not determined in which fields the chairs will be. Part of the gift will also be used to renovate Butterfield Hall, Union's engineering building.
Gutenberger said Williams would make regular gifts in the $200 to $1,000 range, and while officials would occasionally try to visit Williams, he kept turning them down. “Each time he just said 'no,' he just didn't want anybody to come see him,” Gutenberger said.
In Schenectady, where untold thousands have worked and invested in GE over the years, that kind of hidden fortune is not unheard of.
We have a lot of alumni that work at GE, or worked at GE, and a lot of them have built up a substantial amount of wealth through their GE stock,” Gutenberger said.
It's a tale with which Don Lang, chief development officer at St. Clare's Hospital Foundation, is familiar.
“It's not uncommon to get seven-figure gifts from names in this community that aren't household names,” Lang said.
For families that sent a few people to work for GE, “You've got over 100 years of GE stock building up. And they didn't spend it. They were frugal,” Lang said. And, typically, they want to remain far under the radar. “The richest people in town have the used cars,” Lang said. “You never know who is who, and who has what, so you treat everybody well.”
Williams, who received an electrical engineering degree from Union in addition to study at Cornell and Duke, was manager of GE's Magnetics Section and worked in its engineering laboratory. He was married and had no children; he lived in Scotia for many years before moving to Pennsylvania.
His estate was partially divided among Union, his late wife's alma mater, Piedmont College in Georgia, and the James A. Michener Art Museum in Pennsylvania.
Williams was also a skilled violinist who performed with orchestras in New York and Philadelphia. He also gave some money to individual musicians.
“We are extremely grateful to receive this generous gift,” said James Underwood, Union's interim president. “Union obviously played a big role in William's life.”
Williams' gift, while large, isn't the school's biggest ever. In 2002, former U.S. Rep. John Wold of Wyoming and his wife, Jane, contributed $20 million.