Our recent gift of timber to Allegheny College was motivated by our love for, and attachment to, the College that has educated three generations of our family. Nancy's mother, aunts, and uncle were Allegheny graduates, as is a cousin. Two of our children are also alumni. We have high hopes that Allegheny will receive some of the fourth generation as well — and others beyond that.
For all that the College has meant to us, we had formed the resolve that at some time we would make a gift to help Allegheny continue its tradition of enriching the lives of its students. We had supposed that this would happen sometime further down the road — perhaps as part of our estate plan. But then a wind shear intervened, and a large part of the timber we had looked to for future income, gifts to children, or benevolence, lay upon the ground — harvested, so to speak, ahead of time. Unfortunately, there was no reimbursement for our future income loss, rather only capital gain tax brought on by a catastrophe.
It then occurred to us that we could make a gift of some of the fallen timber to the College, receive a charitable deduction for the value of the gift, and avoid the gains tax. And so it came about, perhaps because of the adage that "it's an ill wind that blows no one any good" or perhaps because it was "a windfall" — but really because we wanted to say thanks to "Fair Allegheny, beatissima."
— David and Nancy (Miller) '53 Swanson
This article originally appeared in the October 2004 edition of the Allegheny Planner.
