$28M windfall: Thank you, Nancy Mattis!

PROVIDENCE — The father had philanthropic foresight before he died, in 1965. The daughter kept his promise — and a careful eye on a most unusual investment — until she died, in 2016.

And the beneficiary in 2017 is Rhode Island, indebted now to a man most people today never knew.

He was Frederick B. Wilcox, who rose from humble beginnings to become a highly successful investment banker. In his will, he left a trust of about $1 million, to be overseen by his daughter, Nancy W. Mattis. The father specified that 60 percent of whatever it had grown to at the time of her own passing would be given to the Rhode Island Foundation.

It had grown to $48 million when she died, last October, at age 95.

The Rhode Island Foundation thus will receive $28 million in unrestricted funds, which will allow the group to use the money as it sees fit to “address the needs of the day,” says president and CEO Neil Steinberg.

“Transformational,”

Steinberg calls such unprecedented flexibility.

Steinberg knew of the trust’s existence before last year, though not all of its details.

“We knew someday we would get something,” he said.

And then he received a phone call from Frederick “Ted” Mattis, Nancy’s son.

Nancy was dying, at her longtime Barrington residence.

“She stayed at home in her bed until the last,” as she wanted, Ted said.

As the end neared, Ted decided she would appreciate a letter from Steinberg acknowledging her stewardship of the trust, which over the 51 years had grown by 4,800 percent — a majestic return, by any investment-banking perspective.

So Steinberg wrote to Nancy, expressing “appreciation and gratitude for your wonderful stewardship and management of your father’s trust … thank you very, very much.”

“I brought the letter and read it to her,” Mattis said. “She was pleased. She knew she had done good.”

Nancy W. Mattis’ obituary was published in the Oct. 30 Providence Journal. It listed an ancestor, Gabriel Bernon, who settled in Rhode Island in 1697; her late father, mother, and husband of 57 years; and her survivors, including daughter Suzanne Lewis and Ted. It gave the impression of a quiet but fulfilled life, all of it spent in the state that was as beloved to her as it had been to her father.

“She grew up in Providence with her summers spent by the shore of Narragansett Bay in the Bristol Highlands,” the obituary read. “It was in that old summer community and, perhaps, she would say, having been born a Pisces, that her lifelong love for the water began. She lived on the water most of her life and, be it canoe or steamship, she was an avid boater. Even into her nineties, she insisted on being taken out for a ‘spin’ around the river in the old Boston Whaler she kept at her dock.”

Nancy’s obituary, written by her son, listed her membership in many clubs, her love of reading and conversation, and her athleticism, her passions for golf, tennis and bowling. She kept a “small close circle of cherished family and friends.”

But there was nothing in the obituary about th e Frederick B. Wilcox Endowment Fund.

In sharing the story, Ted Mattis said he hoped to honor this woman who honored her father by ensuring that his gift was delivered, so long after his bequest. Ted did not say, though it is undeniably true, that someone less noble-minded with control of such a fortune could have found a way to finagle it all for herself.

“I thought it was important that my mother be acknowledged for what she did,” Mattis told The Providence Journal. “She was a very quiet woman, very unassuming, lived that way, wanted to be that way — wanted to be known that way. Her father was a remarkable story and my mother was a great steward.”

Said Steinberg: “To have the foresight 50-plus years ago to do this planning, as something that would benefit the state of Rhode Island — he had to be somebody who loved this state.”

“My grandfather had great foresight and trust in the Rhode Island Foundation,” Mattis said. “Through his insightful planning and his daughter’s prudent stewardship, he will be helping to take care of the community for generations to come.”