Someone I wish I could have met
This choked me up when I read it, I really wish I could have known her. Its people like Roberta Langtry that make this world a better place.
Teacher kept her riches secret, then left charity $4.3-million
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
TORONTO — During most of her long life, Roberta Langtry was an unassuming elementary school teacher in Toronto.
She always shied away from the limelight and spent many years during her career trying to help autistic children with their speaking difficulties. But Miss Langtry, who died last year at the age of 89, carried an unusual financial secret that has been revealed only through her death.
Unknown to almost everyone who knew her, including her closest friends, the modestly paid teacher was really a closet multimillionaire, who through a bequest has given what is believed to be the largest donation from an individual to an environmental cause in Canada.
Miss Langtry asked that more than $4.3-million of her estate be given to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, a charity that buys environmentally sensitive land and turns it into nature reserves.
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But there was no mistake, and Miss Langtry’s legacy is being feted by the conservancy, which is issuing a news release on the donation today. It plans to use the money to buy more wetlands and help safeguard the Oak Ridges Moraine, a pastoral rural area north of Toronto that Miss Langtry held dear and is the subject of large-scale conservation efforts in the province.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com//servlet/story/LAC.20060929.CONSERVANCY29/TPStory/National/