Former reporter, wife leave $3 million to community in Iowa

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    DAVENPORT, Iowa (Quad-City Times) — Longtime Quad-City Times reporter John Willard and his wife, Carol, of Davenport, have left a $3 million estate with the Quad-Cities Community Foundation to be used to benefit nine organizations special to them.

Willard worked for the Times for 34 years, retiring in 2007, and dying unexpectedly in November 2017 at the age of 74. Carol died in July at age 78.

Sherry Ristau, president and CEO of the foundation, characterized the Willards’ bequest as “a significant gift.”

“Have we gotten larger? Yes. But no question, this is one of the largest.

“This is a tremendous legacy,” she said. “They wanted their resources put to a good use. It shows the depth of their commitment. They cared deeply about the community.”

Named beneficiaries are Friends of Vander Veer; Friends of Davenport Public Library; University of Illinois Foundation; George Williams College, Aurora, Ill.; Iowa PBS Foundation; Grace Lutheran Church, Davenport; Genesis Health Services Foundation, specifically the Genesis Hospice program; Humane Society of Scott County, and the community foundation to use in its discretionary Community Impact Fund.

How it will work is that every year, interest from the $3 million endowment will be dispersed equally to the nine groups. At current interest rates, the total amount generated annually would be roughly $135,000, with each group receiving about $15,000, Ristau said.

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.

The Genesis Hospice program became very special to Willard when he volunteered there after his retirement.

Because his gift was listening and writing, he took on the opportunity to interview military veterans about their service and write their stories, Lori Bruning, now-retired volunteer coordinator, said.

Under the program developed by Genesis, the stories were then given to the veterans in a ceremony that included presentation of a service lapel pin and a certificate stating that Genesis honors veterans.

“With his professional skills, as well as his military skills — he was a Vietnam veteran — it was a natural fit for him,” Bruning said. “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.” And his stories always captured the spirit of the person’s experience.

Genesis started this program with the realization that at the end of life, people often want to say things, to reflect on their lives, to explain what their life was like.

“For those of us in hospice, if we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times (from families), ‘We should have done this sooner.'” But maybe the person wasn’t ready.

Money from the Willards will help Genesis Hospice meet the needs of its patients, including those 16 that might be in the Clarissa Cook Hospice House in Bettendorf at any given time, as well as the 100 to 150 people in 11 counties, including Iowa and Illinois, who receive Genesis Hospice care in their homes every day.

Vander Veer was an obvious choice for the Willards because the couple loved the park, and Willard often walked there from their home in the Garfield School neighborhood to sit at the fountain and enjoy the day.

He wrote many stories about the park over the years and was a member of the Friends organization.

Natasha Sotos, executive director of Friends, said the gift “was a surprise, but his love (of the park) was not.”

Buying flowers, such as roses for the rose garden, is one of the Friends’ biggest expenditures, Sotos said. Poinsettias and lilies for the conservatory’s holiday and spring displays also come from Friends, as do the guides and brochures for its summer program “so that when families come to the park, they have something fun and educational to do,” she said.

Willard also was a member of Friends of the Davenport Public Library; he loved to read personally, and he worked closely with library staff professionally, researching stories, particularly history pieces.

Money from Friends is used to pay for programming, particularly for young people, including craft supplies, books to give away in the summer reading program and bringing in special guests such as authors, Amy Groskopf, library director, said.

“What’s really important and really nice is that this money doesn’t have any strings attached,” she said. “We can use it for the needs that are most pressing or to take advantage of things that are offered.”

Although Groskopf is director now, she worked in special collections during most of Willard’s reporting years and “everybody in special collections really enjoyed working with him,” she said. “He was a meticulous researcher of local history; he wanted to make sure his stories really were accurate. And we’d be learning things too, to answer what he was looking for.”

And of course the Willards remembered the humane society because both loved animals, and had numerous cat friends over the years.

Iowa Public Television was chosen because they enjoyed the programming, and they remembered the colleges they attended because they valued their educations.

Carol Willard had long been a member of Grace Lutheran Church, and John got more involved in later years, quizzing the pastor about church teachings and singing in the choir.

The Willards’ gift to the community foundation was directed to its Community Impact Fund, a discretionary fund that can be used to meet the area’s most pressing needs and to seize unexpected opportunities.

This year the fund helped people and organizations affected by COVID-19 and $50,000 was given to United Way of the Quad-Cities for its Equity initiative, Ristau said. Last year the fund helped people and organizations impacted by flooding on the Mississippi River.

People who knew the Willards were unaware of their substantial wealth because the couple did not live a showy lifestyle.

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. They did not travel extensively; they liked to spend vacations at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, a community known for shopping, restaurants and concerts.

At the Times, Willard reported on news, features and business and in later years he researched and wrote a local history column called Backward Glances. Among highlights of his career were reporting on Miss Iowa in Atlantic City and Pope John Paul II in Des Moines. He spent a week on the road with the Glenn Miller Band, tooled around the Midwest with an over-the-road trucker and flew in the tail gunner’s bay of a B-17 bomber.

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, Ristau said, explaining that the foundation can manage a person’s estate after they are gone, following their wishes.

Willard met with the community foundation in January of 2017, wanting to get his affairs in order. In October of that year he attended a celebratory event for donors at the Figge Art Museum. Two weeks later in November, he died.

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