Mary Edna Baker Donaldson and Mary Ellen Donaldson Diehl Endowed Scholarship Fund in Education to support more than 80 teacher candidates per year

Deborah Diehl recently committed to a planned gift of $2 million for Buffalo State University education students in honor of her mother, Mary Ellen Donaldson Diehl, ’39, and her grandmother, Mary Edna Baker Donaldson, 1913.

The gift, once implemented, will provide $80,000 annually for books, technology, and supplies for students majoring in elementary education, music education, exceptional education, and secondary education. It is anticipated that 80 or more students will benefit from this gift each year.

“This is not about me; I had a terrific family,” Diehl said. “I could leave the money to World Central Kitchen or Sheldrick Wildlife Trust where it would do some good but be used up, or I could put it in a fund at Buffalo State which will honor them and, I hope, have a positive effect for years to come. I think they would like that.”

Mary Edna Baker Donaldson was born in Randolph, NY on August 23, 1893. She graduated from State Normal and Training School (Buffalo State’s name from 1888 until the late 1920s) in 1913. Her first year of teaching was in Eden Valley. For the next 46 years, she taught sixth grade at Harding Elementary in Buffalo before retiring in 1960. A lifelong champion of women’s rights, she served as president of the Western New York Chapter of the National Women’s Party, the precursor of N.O.W. in the 1940s and early 1950s. Baker Donaldson was a founding member of the Buffalo Business and Professional Women’s Club in 1934. In her spare time, she loved to garden.

Her daughter, Mary Ellen Donaldson Diehl, was born in Buffalo on May 23, 1918. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she graduated from State Teacher’s College at Buffalo (Buffalo State’s name from 1928 until the mid-1940s) in 1939.  After teaching her first year in Belmont, NY, she spent the rest of the 1940s teaching first and second grade on Grand Island. She gave up teaching to raise her daughter, Deborah, the source of this bequest. Donaldson Diehl was also an avid bridge player and voracious reader.

“We are profoundly grateful for this extraordinary and visionary planned gift, which will create life-changing opportunities for our students for generations to come,” said Buffalo State president Jennifer L. Burris, Ph.D. “It is deeply moving that this gift beautifully honors the donor’s mother and grandmother, Buffalo State graduates who dedicated their lives to the noble profession of elementary school education. This contribution represents philanthropy in its purest form; though the donor will never personally see this gift utilized, her selflessness will support over 80 teacher candidates every year. By establishing the Mary Edna Baker Donaldson, 1913 and Mary Ellen Donaldson Diehl, 1939 Endowed Scholarship Fund in Education, Deb’s foresight guarantees that her family’s passion for learning will endure forever on our campus, removing financial barriers and inspiring generations of future educators.”