The Youngs Were Avid Walkers, Travelers and Lived in Albany 59 Years

Not only did “Gee Gee” and “Maggie” Young leave of $377,000 to the  and  athletic department, they apparently left everything they had to the two institutions.

The Youngs, who passed away in 2011 at ages 98 and 99, loved reading, believed in physical fitness and cherished living in Albany, said their estate trustee and longtime friend, Kay Kinney of Cupertino, CA.

"They loved Albany,” Kinney said in a phone conversation late last year. The bequest “was everything they had,” she said.

The couple lived in their Washington Avenue house from 1952 until the spring of 2011 when they died within months of each other. The house was sold in August for $401,000, according to real estate website Trulia.com.

The proceeds of that sale were used to make the bequests, Kinney said.

Mr. and Mrs. Young never had children, but they “were very neighborly” and very caring about everybody, according to next door neighbor Ray Anderson, whose words echoed Kinney's description of the Youngs.

They said the husband and wife loved people and loved to walk around the neighborhood and chat with people. They also loved to travel and learn about the world.

“They had a lot of books, a lot of interests,” Anderson said, adding that this might explain their interest in helping out the library. “They were very knowledgeable people. They knew about everything; very intelligent."

Anderson lived next door to the Youngs in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Gardener Young worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a technician in the radiology department with Kinney’s father, said Kay Kinney. They were good friends.

As a couple, the Youngs loved to walk and attend Oakland A’s baseball games, she said.

“They walked every day,” Kinney said, adding that Margaret Young walked daily up until a month before she died at the age of 99 last May.

A MYSTERY TO MANY

The Youngs came into the spotlight after the  of $188,500 to the Athletic Department and $188,500 to the Albany Library.

But many members of the community said , and weren't sure what might have prompted their generosity.

The and the announced the bequests in November.

According to the Youngs’ instructions, the bequests were to be used for sports and safety equipment at the high school, and books and equipment at the library, but not for salaries or ongoing operating expenses.

High School Athletic Director Andrew Strawbridge said the athletes and their families were thrilled and thankful.

“This bequest is greatly appreciated and much needed,” he said, noting that bare-bones budgets have prevented the high school from replacing equipment for a number of years.

said the district's new athletic fundraising organization, , will advise the athletic director and high school principal on the best use of the money. PAHS has started a process to do so and aims to spread the bequest over many years.

Over at the library, manager Ronnie Davis said the institution was honored to receive the bequest, and that the Library Board will be instrumental in deciding how it will be used. She said she hoped to learn more about the generous couple.

Two other tidbits Anderson described about the Youngs were that they liked to travel by train and would often take trains all the way to Wyoming.

They also owned a Studebaker car, he said, a make that dominated in the middle of the last century but whose manufacture stopped in 1966. 

The Youngs didn’t replace that car until 1983, said Anderson, because they preferred walking and taking trains to driving.

Did you know the Youngs? Share your memories in the comments below.

If there's something in this article you think , or if something else is amiss, call editor Emilie Raguso at 510-459-8325 or email at albany@patch.com.