Polly and Ken Germeshausen, and Sade 2006, R 1-20

"Hello, M'Dear!" That wand as the greeting I would usually receive from Polly Germeshausen, together with a warm smile, twinkling eye, neat gray white hair, and always conservatively and elegantly dressed. She was one of the best friends I ever had.

We first met when I was doing estate planning work under the direction of Ray Roberts, as a senior associate in the late 1960s. Ray was the principal estate planning partner in the firm, and was doing estate planning for the Ken and Polly Germeshausen and for Harold (“Doc”) and Esther Edgerton, long­ time friends, the four of them, Ken and Doc having met each other at MIT and subsequently forming the great company EG&G, Inc. In those years, Ken was still very sharp, the Chairman of the Board of EG&G, and though quite reticent, his intellect was very strong, he always knew what he wanted to do, and generally did it.

But mid-way through the estate planning project for both families, Ray Roberts suddenly had a heart attack and died, while I was away on a vacation trip in Spain. Upon returning, the managing partner, Paul Hellmuth, who had been overseeing the relationship with the Germeshausens and Edgertons, asked me to complete the work, as I had known Paul since the time I came to the firm, and was one of the few younger attorneys to have worked regularly with him. We completed the estate planning project for both families, and I remember Paul taking me to Durgin Park for dinner and he having a Manhattan or two, I probably had scotch in those days, and I remember telling him how much I enjoyed working with him and those families.

In the case of the Germeshausens, I played a role in reviewing their estate planning and also helping in their charitable giving. Unfortunately, Ken developed Alzheimer's, and meetings became increasingly difficult and painful as I would ask them questions and he would grope for answers. One could see the subtle shift in power and authority, from meeting to meeting, as Ken became more quiescent and Polly more decisive as she took on the responsibilities of both of them.

I know how painful a long period it was for them, and I remember Polly telling me once that Ken once looked at her balefully, and simply said "I'm sorry". They both knew what he meant, and we all do.

But Ken's awesome intellect, strong leadership and moral core had been reflected not only at EG&G but also at the charitable institutions at which he had been so active, such as MIT and WGBH, but also in the values and commitment that were later so fully expressed in their own ways by Polly and their only child, Nancy.

Paul Hellmuth had been the inspiring voice to both Ken and Doc, encouraging them to create private foundations to continue after their deaths, rather than just leave all their estates to their children and named charities. They both followed his advice, except that Doc changed his mind later and followed a course of giving away more and more money during his life, leaving only a small foundation.

Nancy once asked me why her father left the money to the Foundation rather than to the family, and I mentioned that he went through phases of deciding how much to leave her as his only child, in comparison to charity, and having started off with a belief that she should have only a modest amount, continually increased that during his life. At the same time, he felt the funds would all disappear into charities if he gave it all to them at his death. I also encouraged the concept that there was a real opportunity for his family and the trustees to make a difference through imaginative grantmaking. He drafted a beautiful, if somewhat dated in its style, a statement of hope for the Foundation, which the Trustees from time to time would reread and discuss.

In presentations that I have made about family foundations, I have stated that if a family is smart enough to make a lot of money, committed enough to society to create a foundation, it is likely that they might also have values worthy to follow in grantmaking, and that families should maintain control of foundations they have created and try to express those values and carry out that commitment.

This is not always a popular idea as I, along with others, are critics of the so-called Mandarin class of foundation executives, at whose jokes, no matter how poor, everyone laughs, and who change the directions of foundations as frequently as they change jobs, with scant regards for the values or original commitment or goals of the families that created the foundations.

In Ken's declining years, Polly and I served as the active grantmakers, and Nancy joined as she became more interested in doing so. Polly wanted to emphasize the charitable organizations to which she and Ken had been committed, and I urged her to emphasize one or two sets of goals for our grantmaking in the Boston area. Based on their prior interests, we agreed to emphasize Youth and Education, and Arts and Culture, as two overarching themes, for endowment and current use grants in the Boston area. The largest grants went to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Museum of Fine Arts and WGBH, since these had been central commitments of Ken and Polly, as well as the Museum of Science, at which they had created and funded the EYE Opener Program for younger students.

At WGBH, we took a somewhat different direction by creating a fund to support the development of new programs, with an emphasis on children. Over the years Polly and I, and later Nancy also, made decisions to allocate approximately $5,000,000 to this "Venture Fund" for new programming. At a subsequent meeting, I once asked Henry Becton, the President of WGBH if he could prepare a chart showing how they had invested the funds in new programs, which had succeeded, and how much funding ultimately was raised for the various programs. He thought that was an idea and we soon received a chart that showed that the $5,000,000, which allowed for the creation of Arthur, Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?, Between the Lions, The American Experience, Women in Science and a few others, in the end earned well over $150,000,000 for WGBH in support for the expansion of those programs, including a special grant of $50 million for Between the Lions, engineered by Senators Ted Kennedy and Thad Cochran, as both believed the program was successful in teaching people to read via television.

In the late 1990s Polly and I agreed to make endowment gifts to support these programs at our major three grantees, BSO, MFA and WGBH, each in the amount of $1,500,000, payable over five years. And a couple year later, Polly and I attended a dinner near the close of an MFA Capital Campaign, at which Jack Cogan, the campaign chair, made a plea for all of us who were present, representatives of the major funders of the campaign, to make any additional gift that they could in order to bring the campaign to a successful close.

Polly and I left the dinner at the MFA and I drove her home. As we left the parking lot of the MFA, Polly said, "Marty, I think I’d like to leave each of our three big charities $1,000,000 on my death. What do you think?" I immediately said "No". Polly looked at me with a quizzical eye and I immediately said "Don't wait until you die, have the fun of giving it away now. The Foundation can make those grants!" She said "Really?" I said "Yes, and since you and Nancy are going to Malcolm Rogers' home for dinner tomorrow night, why don't you tell him right then and there that you are going to make another gift of $1,000,000?" Well, Polly called me the morning after the dinner to say that she in fact did that, and that Malcolm kept coming over and telling her how thrilled he was and could he tell some more people of the new gift. Polly was thrilled, as was Nancy. Indeed, why should she have waited and missed that joy?

Polly, Nancy and I visited City Year in its second year of operation, and were so impressed that the foundation became a major funder. Similarly, we met Stanley Pollack, the founder of Teen Empowerment and began a long-term relationship of investing in the development of their programs after meeting some of the program’s Youth Leaders. We became the largest funder for almost 15 years. Teen Empowerment’s concept was to employ high school students with leadership abilities, including potential gang members, and paying them to be leaders among their friends and in their schools and neighborhoods. The students signed contracts that required them to attend school, engage in constructive activities, and be peacemakers within society. Failure to comply led to warnings and then termination of their roles and compensation. Almost all of the students succeeded and many went on to college and success. I co-chaired Teen Empowerment’s 25th Anniversary event in 2017 that honored Stanley, with the police chiefs from Boston, Somerville and Rochester NY as speakers, along with several of the Youth Organizers.

I had known Bill Moyers for many years, from the late 1960s in corporate work, and got to know him when he was in public television and we stayed in touch. Polly and Nancy both once attended a dinner with Bill, representatives of WGBH and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation to discuss the environment and television in hopes of coming up with some idea for a television special on the environment. Nothing ever panned out.

A couple years later, Bill called me and said that he was deeply committed to doing a television special on the Dodge Poetry Festival held every two years in New Jersey , and he needed another funder besides his usual two and was there any chance that the Germeshausen Foundation might commit to this funding. Since it was late July or early August and the festival would take place in September, he could not go to the foundations with lengthy bureaucratic practices.

I remember going to Polly’s home to discuss Bill’s request with her, based on a two or three page faxed letter from Bill. Both Polly, and Nancy by telephone, promptly agreed, and we funded $600,000 for the show within another week.

For some reason, Wendy and I received an invitation to the Annual Beth Israel Hospital Benefit Dinner which that year would help to fund and create an Alternative Medicine Institute at the Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School, to be headed by Dr. David Eisenberg. Since Bill was the keynote speaker, we decided to attend. David had served as one of Bill’s key advisors in connection with the Moyers television specials on alternative medicine.

Wendy and I got to chat with Bill at the event; we were impressed with him as always; and extremely impressed with David Eisenberg. The next day, a Sunday morning, I called Polly to tell her and to apologize for not having thought to invite her. I asked whether she might be willing to meet David, and she said yes but we should be sure to bring Nancy since she was interested in this field. Monday I called and arranged a meeting and Nancy, Polly and I visited with David Eisenberg within just a couple days. We asked how much had the Moyers event raised and were told $800,000. Within another day or two, we committed the same amount to help launch the Alternative Medicine Institute.

Not being a large foundation, Polly and I took the attitude that we should help get programs started, but not necessarily serve as long-term funders, particularly if they demonstrated the ability to raise significant funds on a continuing basis, as had David Eisenberg. In fact, shortly after he created that Institute, it became one of five institutions in the United States each receiving $5,000,000 commitments from the Federal government in the field of alternative medicine.

In 2004, at the wonderful memorial service for Polly at WGBH, David delivered extraordinary remarks reminding of the role Polly played in the early funding of the Alternative Medicine Institute, which helped to make it a success and to secure the launching of the entire field. He noted that the Foundation's philosophy did not require it to continue funding after the institute matured, and in fact the institute has done very well, but he closed his remembrance of Polly with the remarks "I wanted to share Polly's contribution to us with you today because an old Chinese proverb compels us to remember that those who sit under the fruit tree must remember those who helped water the seeds."

That all contrasted with the lack of memory at the Children's Museum by Lou Casagrande, the CEO. I had encouraged Polly and the Foundation in the early 1990s to make a couple gifts of size to the children's Museum, one being for $800,000 for the construction of a Frank Gehry floating building on a barge connected to the museum itself. That concept went nowhere and there was nothing to show for that large grant.

The Children’s Museum occupied one-half of a building shared with the Computer Museum, which occupied the other half; the two organizations each having a 50-50 ownership interest with no right for one to buy out the other. The Children's Museum had been attempting to negotiate with the Computer Museum, but that led to nothing, until one day the Computer Museum sent an offer to the Lou for the Children’s Museum to buy out the one-half interest of the Computer Museum for $8 million, so long as they committed within 60 days.

Lou called me, since we had acted promptly on the prior grants, and said that he thought we were the only foundation that could do something on short notice. Could we help? I called Polly and Nancy and we agreed to make a challenge grant. As agreed by the three of us, I wrote a letter to Lou stating that the Foundation would promptly contribute $1 million for the sole purpose of buying the interest of the Computer Museum, but set several conditions: the Museum Board of Trustees must decide irrevocably to drop their idea of moving to the suburbs; each and every member of the Board of Trustees must contribute to the special campaign to purchase the interest in the building by the end of the calendar year (it was then July) or resign; and each member of the Board of Overseers should do the same by the end of the next calendar year.

Lou received the letter and called me after he read it out loud to the board of trustees. The shocked silence was broken, he told me by telephone just after the meeting, by one minority member stating firmly that he had never read such a good letter and “Here is my contribution!” as he made out a check and flung it down the table to Lou. I did not ask and don't know whether the check was for $100 or more, but Lou did tell me subsequently that three members of the board made significant gifts, one or two in the amount of $1 million, because of our challenge grant, and the museum raised the $8 million and bought the interest in the building.

Subsequently I received a call about a new fund drive from a development officer at the Children's Museum in connection with a new $28 Million campaign to reconstruct the entire building. I said we had already done our part and would not be contributing to the new campaign. Apparently they then took our name off the active list. A few years later, probably around 2002, I wondered whatever happened to the Children's Museum and had they finished the construction. I called the development office and they had done that and had an opening the year before. I then called Lou and asked how come Polly, Nancy and I were never invited to the opening. He had no good answer and was embarrassed. I went over to his office to meet with him and chewed him out in lavender, that he personally could not remember the role we played in allowing the Museum to buy out the Computer Museum and reconstructed the entire Children’s Museum. He had no excuse. What a comparison with David Eisenberg's remembrance.

But as Polly and I were developing our grantmaking relationship, we also developed a deep and abiding friendship, and Polly became an important advisor to me. Late in her life, early 2001, Wendy and I went out to dinner with her, she choosing the Wellesley Club, and we told her, with some trepidation, of our plans to move to New York. Wendy and I, having become somewhat of a support system for Polly, hosting her at all the important holidays, such as Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Passover Seders, unless she was going to Nancy's, and frequently going with her to charitable and social events. We were somewhat concerned that she might feel that we were abandoning her and would no longer be available to maintain the close role we had developed. Nothing of the kind! She immediately responded "Well, it's about time you did something new and different!" I guess I had forgotten that her husband once left the safety of MIT to organize a startup company, which became one of the more successful science-based businesses in America.

On that score, Polly was always somewhat unhappy about the lack of recognition given her husband, who had been the real force building EG&G into a great company, in comparison with the self-promotional aspects of many corporate leaders, and the high recognition of Barney O'Keefe, the CEO who succeeded Ken at EG&G.

I had discussed the history of EG&G with Doc, and once recalled to Polly a story Doc had told me about how EG&G became the company it did. I told Polly that Doc claimed that he made (as he did so claim) the most important decision in the history of EG&G and was therefore the key person in its development! Polly looked at me askance, about to answer, when I said "Doc told me that his decision settled a rivalry between Ken and Herb Grier (the third partner in founding EG&G), as Herb wanted to continue to have the company emphasize its nuclear testing work for the United State government, and Ken wanted to diversify and broaden the corporation into other fields. Doc said he made the most important decision because he came down on Ken's side, and made clear that Ken would be the CEO of the company and call the shots, Herb would go run the nuclear testing in Nevada (which he did), and Doc would spend his time at MIT and watch. Polly laughed and was very grateful for the awareness by Doc that Ken built the company, and she did know all along that Doc had been the key person in endorsing Ken's vision for what EG&G could become.

And whenever Polly did come to our home for a holiday celebration, she had always first sent the most appropriate beautiful flower arrangement possible, and always participated fully in every discussion. She and Wendy's grandmother, Sade Goldstein, developed a wonderful friendship and always enjoyed seeing each other at our home.

Wendy and I took Sade out for her birthday to the Ritz Carlton dining room one Saturday night in 1998 along with Polly, and we figured that Sade was approximately 100 years old but of course she would never confirm her age. Polly at the time was 87 and knew that this might be Sade's 100th birthday.

Sade put on one of her usual shows. She walked into the Ritz dining room, handing Wendy her cane to carry, so that she could walk in on my arm so no one would think she was old! She also didn't want anyone to know it was her birthday and we shouldn't have the pianist play that song for her.

Of course Sade, Polly and we all had champagne and then white wine with dinner, Sade smiling and twinkling all the time, happy as could be, enjoying the Ritz (where she and Ed once lived) telling stories and enjoying herself so much that she didn't even object when "Happy Birthday" was played for her benefit. At one point in the evening, Polly turned to me and said quietly "If this is what it's like to be 100, I'm looking forward to the next 13 years!" Polly lived most of the next eight years in that way and with that verve and style, until her stroke at age 95, which very much sidelined her for the final two years of her life. We all would have benefited from more years of Polly's grace, smile, ideas and enthusiasm.