Facts and Figures
Frequently Asked Questions
Polio Plus Updates
PolioPlus Ride Pages
Rotary DownUnder
Australia

AugustaRotary Index
 

How can one help PolioPlus Ride 2003?

Personal and Club contributions to the effort.

Corporate Contributions & Sponsorship

Individual purchase of our gold-toned PolioPlus Ride Support Pin 

 
email

PolioPlus Updates 2002

South Carolina woman's posthumous gift benefits polio work

A South Carolina woman has bequeathed a posthumous gift of US$86,866.07 to help eradicate polio.  Leila Goldsmith stipulated in her will, drawn up
in the early 1950s, that, upon her death and the death of her son and executor Frank Goldsmith, her 28 acres of land in Travelers Rest, South Carolina,
be sold and the proceeds given to an organization that fights polio.

Leila died in 1981and Frank died three years ago. Her grandson, Michael, was then appointed personal representative and he oversaw the sale of the land,
which was completed early in 2002.  Through various channels, The Rotary Foundation's PolioPlus program was selected as the recipient of the proceeds
of the sale.

"Absolutely I am happy that The Rotary Foundation has gotten her gift. She wanted her money to be used to help fight polio and that is what it's going
to do," said Michael, who lives in Campobello, South Carolina, and works as a truck driver.  "My grandmother was a poor country woman and it has always been a mystery to all of us why she chose polio as her cause.  Nobody in our family had polio so we just assume that at the time she made her will, she might have known somebody with the disease."

Leila was originally from Hendersonville, North Carolina. She married Thomas Lafayette Goldsmith and they moved to Travelers Rest in the early 1930s and bought the 28 acres of farmland. Thomas died sometime before 1951.  The Goldsmiths had six children, but only Lawrence, Michael's father, is
still living.

The grandmother of 14, Leila was a member of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Travelers Rest.   She went no further than the third grade in school and was 14 when she married 16-year-old Thomas Goldsmith. They lived in a typical four-room farmhouse with no indoor plumbing. She heated with a coal stove
throughout her life, and even though she eventually got an electric stove for cooking, she never really liked it, Michael said.   Leila never owned a television because "people who have time for a television have idle hands."
 

District 7750, which is credited with the funds, has named Mrs. Goldsmith and her one living son, Lawrence, as Paul Harris Fellows. The rest of the recognition points that result from this gift have been made available as matching points for Rotarians in the district who wish to make a gift to the Foundation's Annual Giving Fund. "We expect that many of our Rotarians will take advantage of this to complete their Paul Harris Fellows, to become Multiple Paul Harris Fellows, or to name someone else as a Paul Harris Fellow," said Past District Governor George D. Rodgers, District Rotary Foundation Committee chair.
 

---