Gift Planning
Estate Gifts at Work
Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust
Born in 1907 in Toronto, Louise Hawley Stone dedicated her life to the world of museums and was a tremendous advocate for the Royal Ontario Museum.
Mrs. Stone is often regarded as one of the Museum's first volunteers, and served on the ROM Board from 1958 to 1972. In 1960 she was a founding member of the Bishop White Committee, a volunteer group formed to raise funds for the Far Eastern Department. During her lifetime, she donated almost 3,000 objects to the Museum and funded the Louise Hawley Stone Chair of Far Eastern Art – the first fully endowed chair in a Canadian museum.
In 1992, as part of her estate planning, Mrs. Stone created the Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust. When she passed away in 1997, $45 million from her estate was bequeathed to the Trust, making her gift the largest bequest the ROM has ever received. The terms of the trust state that "income shall be applied the said Museum for its own publications relating to its collections or any part of them and for purchases of artifacts."
Since 1998, countless artifacts have been purchased with income from the Stone Trust. These acquisitions range from Japanese screens to a painted wooden Mummy cover to the skull and lower jaw bone of a Triceratops, and constitute an invaluable contribution to the ROM's collections and research work. In addition, the Stone Trust has funded numerous ROM publications, from books to field guides to exhibition catalogues. Recent publications include Ken Lister's Paul Kane/The Artist/: Wilderness to Studio and the ROM's first children's book, Burton & Isabelle Pipistrelle: Out of the Bat Cave.
