Lahey Hospital & Medical Center has a proud history of benefiting from the generosity of supporters who have provided for the hospital in their estate plans. To ensure their connection to Lahey continued long after their passing, generous donors, many of them grateful patients and Lahey physicians, established legacies through planned gifts that have made a lasting impact.

The power of legacy giving was demonstrated in December 2023 when Lahey received a remarkable gift from the late Salvatore “Sal” La Cerva, MD, and Ella Sue La Cerva of Nashua, New Hampshire through their charitable remainder unitrusts. Deeply devoted to his wife, Sal established these trusts to provide Ella Sue with income after his death. Upon her passing, the remaining funds would support Lahey, where they had both been longtime grateful patients. Ella Sue, who worked in education, had relocated to New England from Alabama with her daughters, Laura and Michele Lindsey, and married Sal, who was National Director of Psychiatric Services for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “My mother was a kind, southern lady, and she and Sal were always helping people,” says Michele. Sal lived until the age of 95, and Ella Sue passed away last summer at 88. “According to Sal, Lahey represented the best in medicine,” says Laura.

Among Lahey’s most generous donors, Mary Clapham began her 30-year relationship with the institution to honor the memory of her late husband, former President of Johnson & Johnson Arthur Clapham, who supported Lahey through charitable remainder trusts. When Arthur died, Mary continued traveling from their home in Rumson, New Jersey to Lahey for all her medical appointments. She enthusiastically supported the institution’s greatest areas of need and established a charitable trust to benefit Lahey. “She did so much for so many people, and her intent was not to receive praise,” says Mary’s niece, Christine Letendre, of her aunt’s humble and generous spirit. In 2004, Mary died at the age of 103. Her trust has since yielded significant gifts to Lahey annually, and will soon provide a final, sizable distribution.

Robert “Bob” Wenstrup, Jr., PhD, and his wife, Sheila, included Lahey in their estate plans to establish the endowed Dr. John G. Trump Fund for Innovation in Diagnostic Radiology. John G. Trump, ScD, led a 25-year research collaboration between MIT and Lahey and helped launch Bob’s career as the first Chief Medical Physicist and Radiation Safety Officer at Lahey. “Thanks to John, I had the extraordinary opportunity to work with physicians who were the best in their field. I was really part of the Lahey family,” says Bob. “Sheila and I are honored to give back.”

Concord resident Tenley O’Shaughnessy was also inspired to include Lahey in her estate plan after reading a Giving Matters story about a donor couple she recognized from Concord who had done just that. “Like with Jeff and Julie Parker, Lahey has always been there for me and my family. It is a top-notch medical institution and I’m so lucky I live near it,” says Tenley. “I adopted my late father’s belief in the power of preventive health care and wanted to give back, like him,” she says. “Including Lahey in my estate plan seemed a wonderful way to continue this family tradition.”

Planned giving is a vital component of Lahey’s philanthropic mission, and has been critical to the hospital’s success. “We are deeply grateful to our generous donors who have thoughtfully included Lahey in their estate plans and established charitable trusts,” says Susan Moffatt-Bruce, MD, PhD, President of Lahey Hospital & Medical Center. “These donors are making a meaningful impact on our community—not only today, but also in years to come.”

To learn how to make a planned gift, please contact Julia Parrillo at Julia.Parrillo@bilh.org, or visit our planned giving page.