When entrepreneur David Chase, a survivor of the Holocaust, arrived in Hartford penniless in 1946, he was grateful to be alive. Under the Nazis, 60 members of his family perished, including his parents and a sibling.
Chase wanted to continue his education, but had no money to buy schoolbooks. Word of his plight was passed on to Beatrice Fox Auerbach, the granddaughter of Gerson Fox, the founder of the G. Fox department store on Main Street. As a result, Auerbach passed on $100 for Chase to buy schoolbooks.
Auerbach’s philanthropy served as an inspiration to Chase and his family. “He admired her greatly,” said Cheryl Chase. David Chase’s daughter added: “He is a firm believer in the goodness of people. … The Auerbach’s were the biggest of the givers. They did a lot of good for a lot of people. They had a positive effect on society as a whole.”
Giving, it seems, begets giving. While the Chase name is engraved on plaques on some of the region’s most prominent institutions, they are proudest of their smaller, anonymous gifts. Several years ago, a local rabbi came to David Chase, telling him about a family that could not afford to pay for their son’s cancer treatment. Without hesitation, Chase gave the necessary money to the rabbi, who quietly gave it to the family.
Cheryl Chase said that often they never learn how their donations affect others. But in this instance, they met the young man at an event honoring her father. The young man, now an adult and married, surprised them by standing up at the event, hugging her father while saying, “‘Thank heaven. Because of you, I am alive.’”
“It was so powerful,” she recalled, noting that it was an overwhelming moment for her father and for her family.
Attending the event was Chase’s teenage son, who sees his grandfather in a different light, she said. So watching this young man hug his grandfather and be so thankful to him was very revealing to her son about the impact of giving, she explained. “[My son] is very proud about that,” she said. “And he has mentioned it to me at different times.”
Hartford is fortunate that the people who made fortunes here have seen fit to help the city that helped them. Think of downtown Hartford without the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art or The Bushnell. Consider the University of Hartford without Hillyer College or Hartford Art School.
These venerable institutions were the inspirations of individuals and the direct result of affluent families giving away their money to benefit others.
In Hartford, the top 10 family foundations have amassed more than $100 million, with the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation accounting for more than half that amount, at about $67 million.
Giving back to the community was second nature to Auerbach.
Her granddaughter, Rena Koopman, said that while growing up, it was understood that philanthropy and serving on civic boards was “what we did.”
“That is what grown-ups did,” she said. “It was sort of inseparable.”
Children in the family were taught about philanthropy in the same way they were taught about table manners, she said.
“What we did was share. We were taught that you share what you have. It was not an obligation. We were taught that we were privileged, and that was what people did. You were only bad if you could and didn’t,” Koopman said.
According to Joel Fleishman, a professor of law and public policy at Duke University and author of “The Foundation, The Great American Secret,” individuals gave away $119.07 billion in 2005 to various nonprofits or other causes, which dwarfs foundation giving, estimated to be between $30 billion and $33.6 billion. We don’t always remember to say “thank you.” But perhaps we can remember nonetheless that the spirit of giving still supports us all.
