Gruenberg bequest safeguards a love of wildlife

Submitted by the East Haddam Land Trust

        A deep passion for birds and other native life of East Haddam has led to a gift of preservation that should protect and enrich our town’s natural spaces far into the future.

        The recent bequest of a small, privately accessed bird sanctuary — along with a generous monetary donation to care for this property and existing public preserves in town —  will allow East Haddam Land Trust to uphold its highest tenet: to safeguard in perpetuity the town’s natural spaces, from its woodlands and fields to its rivers, lakes, and wetlands.

       Ruth M. Gruenberg, an East Haddam resident who died at age 98 in Nov. 2024, wanted to ensure that the bird sanctuary she started and helped to nurture through the years would flourish well beyond her lifetime.

       “Ruth, for 60 years, was very passionate about birds, including their habitats, the insects they need, the trees they depend on,” said horticulturist Stephen Dedman, a steadfast friend of Gruenberg and longtime caretaker of her property. “Ruth always felt that our natural world needed our help, whether it’s through the actions of our daily lives or through what we give. And that’s because our natural world is fighting for its survival.”

         Gruenberg bought her town property for nesting birds in 2001. She had often visited East Haddam since early childhood in the 1930s, staying with Shanaghan relatives who owned and operated Mount Parnassus View resort. She spent summers horseback riding and swimming in Bashan Lake.

         Before moving to East Haddam full-time after retirement, she spent 38 years at Forbes magazine in New York City. A champion of the powers of education, she had put herself though New York University before being hired. At Forbes, she instituted a rigorous system of proof-reading and fact-checking that became a journalistic standard that reaches even today far beyond the magazine she loved. She rose to become a senior editor, working closely with Malcolm S. Forbes as his editor, and, later, with his son, Steve Forbes. Both men called her “the conscience of the company.”

          Gruenberg and her husband raised their family in Brooklyn Heights, NY.

          “Ruth was a great humanitarian, but she loved plants and animals equally,” said Dedman. “She really was so loving and giving.”

          For information on supporting local land conservation with donations made by will or through a trust, please contact East Haddam Land Trust at: info@ehlt.org.  Also, information is available at: info@ehlt.org.