Stories

Mary L. Cassidy Fund

Mary Lauder Cassidy, the only daughter of Edwin Cassidy, a longtime manager of the Hamilton branch of National Trust, graduated from Trinity College in 1931 with a degree in modern languages. She also studied business and became a secretary to the Dean of Medicine and worked at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She traveled extensively throughout Europe, Great Britain, Japan and the high Arctic, and took a great interest in matters of culture, civic affairs and education.

Her bequests confirmed these interests, whereby she supported scholarships, health and human service organizations and arts groups.

Miss Cassidy became sick with cancer. While in the hospital she developed an interest in the workings of the complicated equipment which surrounded her. Two of her bequests memorialized her late parents; perhaps it was her observation of their aging process that induced her gift to the community foundation “for charitable purposes in connection with aged people”.

Grants have been made from this Fund: to support footcare clinics in homes for the aged and nursing homes; to develop programs protecting older persons from abuse and self-neglect; to start up a stroke survivors’ group; to conduct hearing testing programs; to publish a directory of services for seniors; to investigate the service needs of rural seniors; to support seniors centres and residences, and for several other projects of benefit to the elderly.