Born: c. 1908
Died: February 3, 1997
Married: W. Linwood Thompson IV
Gertrude Thompson was a camper on Upper Saranac Lake as late as the 1990s. At her death, she left more than a million dollars to support the study of atmospheric sciences the University at Albany.
She is remembered as being interested in architecture; she advised Phil Gallos on his book, Cure Cottages of Saranac Lake.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, February 6, 1997
Gertrude Thompson
RIDGEWOOD, N.J. Gertrude Thompson, 89, a retired psychologist and counselor of delinquent adolescents, died Monday, Feb. 3, 1997 in Ridgewood, NJ. She owned a camp in Saranac Lake, where she spent many summers.
Mrs. Thompson left a major part of her estate -- her gift has an estimated value of more than $1 million -- to the University at Albany, and her love of the Adirondacks and her fascination with weather played a major role in that decision.
Even though her family, the meat-packing Swift family of Chicago, lost its fortune in the Great Depression, she and the sculptor she married were able to continue their world travels ranging from Africa to the Adirondacks. Her husband, W. Linwood Thompson IV, died in 1967.
After the death of her husband, Mrs. Thompson spent her summers in a pup tent at her camp in the Adirondacks whenever her health permitted, and she regularly attended the summer lecture series at the university's Whiteface Mountain Field Station in Wilmington. Those lectures were organized by longtime university meteorologist Ray Falconer. And her enjoyment of those lectures led her in 1982 to establish a $50,000 trust fund, in the name of Ray Falconer, to benefit atmospheric sciences at the university.
Her new gift of more than $1 million will go to the Ray Falconer Fund and will be used to establish an endowed professorship in atmospheric science.
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