To teachers, with love: Elementary school teacher Mary Marsh leaves a historic bequest for Education students after a lifetime of giving

They may not know it yet, but McGill’s student teachers are getting a big boost from a kindred spirit.

The late Mary Marsh, DipEd’42, a Grade 1 teacher at Rosedale School in Montreal for most of her career, has left more than $4.8 million in her will to support students in the Faculty of Education through a suite of awards – an investment that couldn’t have come at a better time for a profession deeply marked by the pandemic.

“She said to me more than once that her greatest pleasure in life was giving,” says Marsh’s great-nephew Rob Groulx, adding that his great-aunt focused much of her generosity on future generations of teachers. “That was what she was about,” says Groulx.