Reporter and wife leave $3 million to community foundation

Carol and John Willard

A longtime newspaper reporter in the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois and his wife have left a $3 million estate with their local community foundation to benefit nine local organizations.

John Willard of Davenport, Iowa, retired in 2007 after 34 years at the Quad-City Times, and died unexpectedly in November 2017. His wife Carol died in July. "Those who knew the quiet and soft-spoken Willards are surprised by the amount of the bequest, but not by the entities they chose to befriend, as they had a wide range of interests and causes," Alma Gaul reports for the newspaper.

One of the beneficiaries was a hospice program where Willard volunteered, interviewing veterans and writing stories their military service, which were presented to each veteran in a ceremony. "With his professional skills, as well as his military skills — he was a Vietnam veteran — it was a natural fit for him," said Lori Bruning, volunteer coordinator at Genesis Hospice. "What made him especially good at what he did is that he was a listener, not a talker. He really listened to what people said." 

Other beneficiaries are the Davenport library; the Iowa PBS Foundation; a park the couple loved; their alma maters, George Williams College of Aurora, Ill., and the University of Illinois; Grace Lutheran Church of Davenport; the Humane Society of Scott County, and the community foundation itself, to use at its discretion. Community foundations are increasingly used by donors to help their hometowns by leaving their money to a local organization they trust.

"People who knew the Willards were unaware of their substantial wealth because the couple did not live a showy lifestyle," Gaul writes. "Carol Willard worked as an administrative assistant and they shared one car, with Carol often taking the bus or John dropping her off and picking her up. . . . The couple did not have children; survivors were a brother for John and a sister for Carol. That is a big reason the Willards came to the foundation," according to President and CEO Sherry Ristau.