Dear John,
The Winter/Spring Edition of The Mount Letter, the Alumni News Letter for Mount Saint Michael Academy, has the following article on the late Warren Donohue, Esq.’42:
Last spring the Mount received an extraordinary bequest of $142,712 from the estate of Warren Donohue from the Class of 1938. These funds will be used to support students at the Mount who otherwise would forfeit a Mount education due to financial hardship.
Such support for today’s students reflects the kindness that the Mount offered Warren when he was a student. Warren followed his older brother Vincent ’37 into the Mount (Vincent’s tuition was paid by two generous aunts). As noted by his brother Tom (Class of 1944, a scholarship student), “Warren was dependent on the good will of the then Principal to forgive or reduce his tuition and my mother made annual or semi-annual pilgrimages to the Mount to plead her case and, grace of that Brother’s kindness, she somehow got together enough tuition to get Warren through.”
In addition to Warren’s gift to the Mount, he made a similar gift to Manhattan College where he was awarded a scholarship and graduated. It should be noted that he graduated in three and a half years, after which he joined the Navy’s war effort, serving as an officer on a sub-chaser in the Atlantic. He was promoted to Executive Officer, serving through 11 invasion landings. After the war, he attended NYU Law School, from which he earned a J.D. in 1950; wrote for the NY Daily News as a freelancer, and launched an advertising career as the founder and principal of Warren Donohue Associates.
As he racked up accomplishments, he never forgot the Mount or Manhattan College. So when he began planning his estate, he decided to give other young men a leg up in the exact way he was helped: through financial aid. He established funding to specifically provide support to young men who graduate from Mt. St. Michael Academy and attend Manhattan College. Thus current Mount Students might enjoy a great educational experience over eight years. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving!
I thought that this was a piece that was worth reproducing as an example of how some people do not forget kindnesses!
In the same issue is an article by and other Jasper, Joseph Cammalleri, ’56 (Mount St Michael 1952) about his years as a boarder at the Mount.
Of course I must disclose that I am a proud 1949 graduate of the Mount.
Mike
McEneney, Mike (MC1953)
[JR: Thanks, Mike. Much appreciated. Clearly humbling. While people throw around "the greatest generation" loosely, and I definitely quibble with their politics, what is amazing is their character. Holy Mother Church has made many mistakes in my lifetime, but the biggest, or maybe second biggest, was to permit the destruction of the Catholic School system. These were the "foundries" that created great people. Discipline, Honor, Humility, I see all those virtues in the above story. I wonder what will become of future generations when these great people pass away. We go from Titans to midgets. From literate, to illiterate. From "we give Thee thanks for all we have been given" to "what's in it for me", "I'm entitled", and the ever present cultural epithet. Or course, I'm please to push this story out on the wire. Humbled and saddened. But pleased.]
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Donohue, Warren [MC1942 RIP]
Cammalleri, Joseph [MC1956]
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