Late Indianapolis woman gave millions to regional charities

INDIANAPOLIS -- Sally Reahard was a recluse with a legion of friends, a woman who never married but worried about families and children, who called her friends "honey" and only made right-hand turns when she drove.\nShe had all the credentials of high society: a member of Tudor Hall Class of 1926, the Junior League and Woodstock Country Club. But friends remember her best as a guardian angel for people she never met.\nWhen Reahard died in July at age 95, few people outside her circle of friends knew her name or of the millions of dollars she gave away during her lifetime. That's exactly how she wanted it\nNow, her generosity is becoming public knowledge as attorneys distribute assets from her estate. Her attorneys declined to divulge its size or the total amount of her gifts but said it is one of the largest local estates to come along in years.\nThe largest bequest is a $70 million gift to the Nature Conservancy, the single largest gift in the organization's history.\nLong known for her love of natural resources, particularly those in Indiana, Reahard's past contributions have allowed the conservancy to buy thousands of acres, including a tract of wetlands in northern Indiana she named Swamp Angel after a character in a Gene Stratton-Porter novel.\nHer latest gift is in a league of its own, said Mary McConnell, the Indiana state director of the Nature Conservancy. "This is a transformational gift for the Nature Conservancy," McConnell said. "For the first time in our history and the state of Indiana, we can impact conservation on a scale this state has never seen before."\nUnder the terms of the gift, the Indiana chapter will receive $40 million and the conservancy's national office will receive $30 million for wetlands preservation along the East Coast, McConnell said.\nA number of other gifts will go to Indianapolis organizations, including $6 million for the Indianapolis Museum of Art.\nReahard's bequests were born of a long interest in helping others, said her longtime attorney, Gene Wilkins.\nShe was the daughter of Ralph Reahard, who attended pharmaceutical college with Eli Lilly and later joined Lilly's pharmaceutical company, where he served as vice president of production until his retirement in 1948.\nUpon his death, Sally Reahard inherited Lilly stock and used the interest from it to support her favorite causes. She typically gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, Wilkins said.\n"She couldn't solve all the world's problems, but she could solve some of them," he said.\nBut in her 40s, she became a recluse, restricting her travels to within a few blocks of her home at Meridian and 54th streets, her friends said. One longtime acquaintance, Susie Maxwell, speculates that Reahard's concern about viruses might have been the reason.\nThe last time Reahard visited downtown was in 1957, Wilkins said. When issued invitations to come to the city's center, Reahard would decline, explaining, "I want to remember it as it was."\nWhen she did go out, it was usually to the Hamaker Pharmacy at 49th and Pennsylvania streets or to her bank at 56th and Illinois streets, following a circuitous path of right-hand turns to reach her destination.\nMaxwell first met Reahard at her home in the 1980s while working at the Children's Museum. She was seeking information about Charleston, S.C., and had been referred to Reahard, who fell in love with that Southern city following a trip there while she was attending Sweet Briar College in Virginia.\nMaxwell found an educated woman who exuded grace and manners. Reahard read everything she could get her hands on and had a brilliant mind, Maxwell said.\nPeter T. Harstad, who retired as chief executive officer of the Indiana Historical Society in 2001, said Reahard loved history and books about Indiana. She donated a complete first set of books by Stratton-Porter, an Indiana author, and was a key contributor to the society. The society wanted to name a reading room in her honor but, according to her wishes, waited until after her death to do so.\nReahard's generosity was matched by her wit. "She was just a lot of fun," said George McDaniel, the director of Drayton Hall in Charleston, S.C., who visited Reahard from time to time in Indianapolis. Her estate left $15 million to the hall, a national historic landmark.\nShe once received a letter from Publishers Clearing House asking her what she would do with $5 million if she won. She instructed her attorney to write the company's president and tell him she already had millions of dollars she didn't know what to do with.\nBut Reahard didn't need a primer on helping others.\nWhen a friend told her of repairs needed at the James Whitcomb Riley Home in Lockerbie, she wrote a check for $50,000 to pay for the work. After the dividend from her Lilly stock went up, Wilkins said, her response was, "What shall we do?"\nShe decided to contribute $200,000 toward a scholarship so staff of Riley Hospital could attend additional training.\nGifts like those from Reahard and Ruth Lilly, who pledged $200 million to create the Ruth Lilly Philanthropic Foundation, can be crucial to organizations trying to survive in tough economic times.\n"She wasn't just scattering money around," said Bret Waller, former executive director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. "She was very concerned that anything that happened be done in a serious, businesslike manner"