By Gretchen Keiser

A woman who lived for many years in a garage apartment in College Park has left in her estate gifts to Catholic charities that total more than $4.6 million.

The humble lifestyle of Catherine FitzGerald, who died September 10, 1987, belied the financial means that she left behind, primarily to the benefit of the Church she loved.

Among the beneficiaries of her estate, who were being given the funds in June, were nine Catholic charities, including the archdiocese of Atlanta, her parish of St. John the Evangelist in Hapeville, the Village of St. Joseph, Marist School and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cancer Home in Atlanta.

Two national Catholic charities, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and the Catholic Medical Mission Board, both in New York City, were also beneficiaries and were presented with checks in mid-June by attorney James Callison.

Two Catholic charities in Ogdensburg, N.Y., where Miss FitzGerald was from, were also beneficiaries. They are St. Mary’s Cathedral in Ogdensburg and St. Joseph’s Home in Ogdensburg.

The archdiocese of Atlanta was left a bequest of $781,202, which included a stipulation that it primarily benefit mission churches, particularly those outside the metropolitan Atlanta area. The Village of St. Joseph, a residential treatment center in southwest Atlanta for children with emotional and family problems, was left a gift of $390,601. Marist School was also left a gift of $390,601.

The bequest to the Cancer Home was also $390,601.

According to the provisions in her will, her estate, following specific bequests, was divided into 16 equal shares, with the shares to be distributed to 11 religious and charitable organizations as she specified.

One share amounted to $390,601, which would mean that her estate has provided approximately $6.2 million to the charities combined.

The archdiocese received two shares, in a presentation to Archbishop Eugene A. Marino by Callison on June 7. The archbishop thanked the attorney for being “the angel of good news” as he gave the unexpected gift. Sister Mary Francis Bruns, C.S.J., administrator of the Village, was elated over their gift and said the board of the Village would meet to consider which of “many pressing needs” at the Village to address with the funds.

Two shares were given to St. John the Evangelist parish and two shares to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. The funds will be used to support the Society’s efforts in close to 900 missionary dioceses around the word, said James Borut, assistant secretary, and will be “a tremendous help.”

The assistant to the director of the Catholic Medical Board in New York City, Martha Collin, said the gift to their agency, which supports medical clinics and volunteer doctors and nurses in poor areas around the world, was “a bolt out of the blue.”

“Yes, indeed, it was wonderful,” she said.

In additional to the nine Catholic charities, Miss FitzGerald’s estate also left an undisclosed number of shares to two other charities, one administrated by Delta Airlines, the place of her employment from 1926 to 1968.

Miss FitzGerald began work in 1926 for the Louisiana crop-dusting service known as Huff-Daland that was Delta’s predecessor. She was secretary to the airline’s founder, C.E. Woolman, according to Callison, the general counsel to Delta, who knew her as a fellow Delta employee and as a family friend. Miss FitzGerald, who was known as “Miss Fitz,” is credited with naming the airline from her impression of the Mississippi Delta from the open cockpit of a duster. A story in Delta’s corporate newsletter quotes her as saying that the name Delta was “a short name. I thought people would remember it.”

She was the first woman elected to the board of directors of an American airline and served as a Delta company officer for more than 40 years, the newsletter said. Callison said that in her years at Delta she bought stock and was given stock, perhaps even paid in stock during the Depression. Over the years her investment multiplied from thousands to millions, he said.

Father Richard Morrow, formerly a pastor at St. John’s in Hapeville, said she lived “a very simple life” in a two-room garage apartment with “spartan furnishings” and that she was deeply proud of Delta Airlines and faithful to the Catholic Church.

Always a resident of the southside of Atlanta, she had been a part of St. John’s parish since its beginning in 1953, he said, and had been a benefactor of the parish and the Catholic Church during her lifetime as well.

She was “small in stature, but very tall in her loyalties,” he said.