Westport Heiress Ruth Bedford Leaves $40M for her Alma Mater, a Virginia School

Ruth Bedford generally lived more modestly than her means allowed in Westport — driving an old Oldsmobile, volunteering at Norwalk Hospital and carrying on the family tradition in supporting the Westport/Weston Family Y with major donations.

Now it transpires that when she passed away in June, her will left a bonanza for the Foxcroft School, an all-girls private school in Virginia where she graduated in 1932. She had told the school she’d be leaving something for it in her will, but school officials were bowled over when they recently were informed of the amount: $40,000,000.

That’ll double the school’s endowment, according to an Associated Press story.

Bedford, who died childless, didn’t leave any money for her relatives, one told a reporter for a Washington Post story, but she did love Foxcroft School, a private institution that also educated the daughters of such magnates as the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Mellons and Astors.

Ruth Bedford didn’t live an entirely quiet life: She volunteered as a nurse in London during World War II, worked in backstage jobs on Broadway, raced horses and flew seaplanes.

At Foxcroft, Bedford had played basketball, was a cheerleader and was known for her horsemanship.

She would have celebrated her 100th birthday on August 8, according to her obituary.

The Bedford family and its tradition of giving

Bedford’s grandfather, Edward T. Bedford, had grown up poor in Westport before he became a salesman and later a businessman who helped develop the product that became known as Vaseline, according to a Family Y blog published by Hearst Newspapers. (The Washington Post story makes it sound like the family came to “tony Westport” after the fortune was founded.)

He later served on the board of Standard Oil and became a friend of John D. Rockefeller (which has earned Ruth, at least after she died, with the news headline moniker of “Standard Oil Heiress” although it appears that plenty of the money was made other than from that connection, both before and after).

When he became wealthy, Bedford founded the “Bedford Y.M.C.A.,” later renamed the Westport/Weston Family Y. His heirs, including Ruth, continued giving to the institution and serving on its board. Ruth had suggested that a family fund help to expand the Y into the disused fire station building that the family had originally helped fund for the town, a project completed in the 1980s.

When the Y moved to the northern end of town, it was to a piece of property given to the Y by the Bedfords generations before, and the new building was financed in part by the Bedford family. (There are many more details about the Bedford family in the Family Y blog post — read the whole thing here.)

Picture: Ruth Bedford, from Foxcroft School