Westmont Magazine In Memory of Five Friends
Westmont is pleased to acknowledge legacy gifts received during the 1999-2000 fiscal year from the estates of the following members of the Wallace Emerson Society:
June Bauer moved to Santa Barbara after a career as a psychologist in Beverly Hills. She soon met Tony Askew and became a very active member of the Reynolds Gallery Art Council. She was an artist in her own right and frequently entered her work in the gallery Angel Show. Because of her love of art and her enthusiastic commitment to Westmont, she provided a specific bequest in her estate for Reynolds Gallery. Tony Askew and all the members of the Art Council miss her and are grateful for everything she contributed to the gallery, including this fine gift.
Louise Lowry Davis, a longtime Santa Barbara community leader and philanthropist, passed away July 24, 1999. Her interest in Westmont developed through her deep friendship with Dr. Edward Birch, our executive vice president. She believed in higher education and wanted to leave a legacy at Westmont. Her generosity funded the Louise Lowry Davis Gardens and will serve as a lasting memory to a very outstanding woman who touched the lives of many.
Mary Dunavant, a resident of Santa Barbara County since 1961, passed away May 16, 2000, at Vista del Monte Retirement Community. Her relationship with Westmont goes back to the mid-1970s when she and her late husband, Martin Long, set up the first of several gift annuities with the college. When she remarried, she introduced Charles Dunavant to the college. Together they decided to make another future commitment through the college’s Pooled Income Fund. These planned gifts gave Mary additional lifetime income and ultimately left a wonderful legacy gift to Westmont. Mary was a teacher and believed in Christian higher education. She will be missed by her friends at Westmont who enjoyed her sweet spirit.
Ruth Lehmer died in 1998, leaving a legacy at Westmont that she and her late husband, Mark, established in 1967 when they set up a gift annuity using proceeds from a property that had been in their irrevocable trust. They decided this was a good way to provide Mrs. Lehmer with additional income during her lifetime. The couple got to know Westmont when their daughter, Dorothy Lehmer McKissick, enrolled as a student. She graduated in 1957 as an education major. Both of her children, Carolyn McKissick Stout ‘84 and David McKissick ’89, also graduated from Westmont. We are thankful that three generations of this family have become members of the Westmont community.
Kathlynn (Kay) West, a former resident of Montecito’s Bonnymede, began her giving relationship with Westmont in 1976 when she donated a painting of the Carmel coastline by Alex Dzigurski. Within a few months of that gift, she decided to set up a charitable remainder unitrust and chose Westmont College as the ultimate beneficiary. For over 20 years she received income payments from the trust, and, when she died in Victoria, British Columbia, in February, the college was thankful to receive the remainder assets in the trust that she set up in 1977.