Donor, long dead, leaves millions and mystery to libraries By Greg Sukiennik, Associated Press, 1/13/2002 10:47 HOPKINTON, Mass. (AP) A retired letter carrier, the frugal son of Irish immigrants, left this town's library a modest gift when he died more than 60 years ago: money he'd managed to save and wisely invest. He set up a trust worth about $71,000 and named three beneficiaries, stipulating that when they died, the remaining money should go to the libraries in Hopkinton and Boston to buy books. His last heir now dead, his gift has grown to more than $3 million. But there's a catch: the little library in Hopkinton, which received $1.2 million, is already stuffed to the rafters. And, since Bernard J. McGovern was so specific in his 1940 will about how to use the money, authorities say his gift can't help the library with much-needed expansion or even buy books on tape unless the courts approve an expansion of the will. Former librarian Rose Leveille, who worked at the library for 31 years, is among few Hopkinton residents who were aware of McGovern and his last wishes. When she saw a funeral notice for Virginia Bernsten nearly two years ago, Leveille knew exactly what it meant: McGovern's niece was his last beneficiary. ''I have seen copies of that will and a report (from the town treasurer) every year,'' she said. ''I was always very much aware of this. The people who were library directors before me certainly knew. But I don't think the townspeople knew.'' But the question that still persists is why McGovern left the money to those two libraries and time has stolen the answer. There was no one to thank when the town received a check for $1,174,332 last fall. McGovern had no children. No next of kin can be found. Town officials are now exploring possible expansion of the will. At present the money would buy more books than the library could possibly hold. ''It's a great boon to us eventually, but right now it's a little bit of a dilemma,'' library director Carol Walsh says. Shelves are shoehorned into every possible nook and cranny of the cozy 105-year-old building, which trustee Jack Donahue calls ''the Fenway Park of libraries.'' Even the window sills hold books. Shelves holding stacks of DVDs and books on compact disc run down the middle of a hallway that connects the library with a wing added in 1967, a former Episcopal church. The library still uses a paper card catalog, and has managed to squeeze in three computers for public use. A larger, handicapped-accessible children's department is a pressing need. So is space for computer equipment and a meeting room. While the Boston Public Library received the larger share of the money, the similarities are few. The largest gift that library ever received was from the late Thomas R. Drey Jr., who left his entire $6.8 million fortune. The BPL has a yearly acquisition budget of $3 million; Hopkinton's is $35,000. The life of McGovern and how he managed to save an estate worth $71,000 at the end of the Great Depression is a bit of a mystery. Probate court files show he was shrewd with money, even in those hard times. An inventory of McGovern's estate outlines a pattern of diversified investing, largely in utilities. He also had eight separate passbook savings accounts, each holding between $3,000 and $5,000. He was born to Bernard and Catherine McGovern on Oct. 26, 1870, in Hopkinton. He worked alongside his father at one of several shoe factories in town through the turn of the century. At some point McGovern moved to the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. He met and married Lenora Lemmon, a child of Irish immigrants like himself. She died of pneumonia March 8, 1923, at 58. McGovern, 69, signed his will in August 1940. Three months later, he died, and the trust was established by 1942 at New England Trust Co. Years passed. Then decades. On April 8, 2000, Berntsen died at age 95. ''I wish now we asked how it all happened,'' said says Mary Morrissey, whose mother, Mary Cronin, befriended Berntsen the last 20 years of her life. ''We did know about the trust that the library would receive a large sum of money that was no secret. But nobody ever said, ''Why did he do that?''' If Berntsen knew her uncle's motive, she never shared it. ''She was a very private person. She didn't volunteer much information about her family,'' Morrissey says. ''If she didn't tell my mother, she didn't tell anybody.'' Leveille has similar regrets. ''It's too bad. I knew people who knew him, people he was acquainted with. I'd love to find out if they knew,'' she says. The story also had a bittersweet ending for Berntsen. Like McGovern, she, too, was widowed. She was famously thrifty, Morrissey says, and loved spending time at the Boston Public Library. But years of nursing home care whittled away her nest egg, to the point where she needed public assistance in the end. McGovern's will had one crucial flaw: no adjustment for inflation. Though the trust grew to $3 million, Berntsen received just $40 a month until the day she died. ''In the end she had needs, and we could never do anything about it,'' Morrissey said.