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FOR GALLAUDET $6 MILLION DID FRIENDSHIP INFLUENCE GIFT?

Prominent Fredericksburg resident leaves $6 million estate to Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf and hard of hearing

BY KAREN BOLIPATA

Date published: 12/21/2007

BY KAREN BOLIPATA

To many Fredericksburg residents, Virginia May Binns was, among other things, "the dog lady."

She rescued dogs and was often seen walking them.

To Amy McGlone, Binns was something more.

McGlone lived a few houses down from the former bacteriologist and daughter of prominent city residents Frances Stoner and Charles D. Binns. In her youth, McGlone visited Binns in her Charles Street home nearly every day to play with the dogs.

Born partially deaf, McGlone communicated with Binns by reading her lips. She said Binns was surprised at first that she could speak.

"She was a remarkable woman," McGlone, 31, said.

Gallaudet University, a Washington school for the deaf and hard of hearing, announced this month that Binns left the university more than $6 million of her estate. It's one of the largest gifts in the university's history, according to Gallaudet, and one of three estate gifts of more than $4 million over the past decade.

Binns was 89 when she died in February 2006. She spent the last years of her life at Hughes Home on Caroline Street.

"I think it's great," McGlone said of the donation.

As a young girl, McGlone spent summers at Gallaudet workshops to learn different communication techniques.

Binns earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Mary Washington College, and American Medical Technologist certification from the University of Virginia Hospital. Her work in medical research led her to the University of Virginia Medical Center, as well as Birmingham, Ala., and Boston.

She returned to Fredericksburg in the 1960s to care for her parents.

"People in Fredericksburg knew her as the dog lady," her cousin, Mary Weber Stoner Taylor, 75, said.

Binns walked her dog each morning to grab a copy of The Wall Street Journal that the dog carried home for her, Taylor said.

When she died, Binns left more than $500,000 to various organizations, including $100,000 to the Rappahannock United Way; $20,000 to the local Salvation Army; $100,000 to the Boys Home of Richmond; and $50,000 to Hollins College, which she attended for two years.

Russell A. Wright, her attorney of more than 25 years, said Binns kept her decisions private and doesn't know of connections she had at Gallaudet.

"She was a real astute business lady and very independent," he said. "She had her own ideas, and she probably had read something and checked into it, and thought it was a worthwhile organization."

Gail Braxton, director of the Mary Washington branch of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, of which Binns was a member, lived on Charles Street near Binns and McGlone.

Braxton said McGlone may have influenced Binns' decision to leave money to Gallaudet.

McGlone, who works at Mary Washington Hospital in the medical records department, said Binns' donation touched her.

"I didn't realize how big of an impact I had on her," she said. "She had a big impact on me, too."

McGlone, for example, developed a love of dogs. A dog she rescued the day Binns died is named, appropriately, Virginia.

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Date published: 12/21/2007