In 1984, Barbara Spencer had an idea. - With education her life’s work, the elementary school teacher and lifelong Westbrook resident wanted to use some of the inheritance from her father Eliot Spencer’s recent death to establish a scholarship in his memory for a high school senior.

She was advised instead to consider creating a Foundation that could provide a broader outreach than financing a single scholarship. She did just that, forming a Board of Directors that included then First Selectman Don Morrison, who joined prominent residents and family friends Judy Lowe, Ed Binder, Mike Wells and Alberta Woodstock.

The initial sum was $20,000 and its interest funded an annual scholarship, just as Barbara planned. As years passed, other benefactors left money in their wills to the care and management of the Foundation.

Major contributors were Henry J. Ortner, Jr.with a scholarship of $7,000 to students intending to pursue a career in engineering, the sciences or nursing. Henry was a nationally recognized diesel engineer and served for many years as Chairman of the Planning Commission. The Elliot A. Spencer Memorial Scholarship awards $5,000 to a top student. Elliot served Westbrook as a State legislator and member of the Board of Education. Former Westbrook Elementary School principal Raymond L. Wilson is honored by a Scholarship of $1,000, given to a student pursuing a career in teaching. Honoring Westbrook residents who lost their lives in war, the Calderari-Hoxsie-Schubert-Steinson Veterans Memorial Scholarship awards $1,000 to a student with a strong interest in science or nursing.

Donations from former Westbrook teachers are the Josephine S. Crump Scholarship of $500 for a student who will teach business education, and the Ellen S. Murphy and Dorothy Christopher Hoyt Scholarships of $500 which help deserving students.

Westbrook residents and their families turn to the Foundation for scholarship formation and direction. The Mazeau family offers $500 in the memory of Pat Mazeau & Myrtie Gareau, the Oscar Manstan/Richard Nolf Memorial Industrial Arts Scholarship provides a student pursuing industrial arts with a $300 award, and the Herbert A. Muller, Jr. Memorial Scholarship provides $400, and the Messerschmidt Scholarship Fund is for local residents pursuing education beyond secondary school.

Barbara retired from teaching in 1992 and then died suddenly of a heart attack in July of 1993. But her love for her town and its children lives on in the children’s room at the Library. On Sunday, May 3, the Foundation will honor the quarter century that has passed since her idea became a reality.