Frances Lobman: Honoring Her Father and Establishing Her Own Legacy

Retired educator Frances Lobman was already making gifts to the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science when her father died at the age of 97 and she became executor of his estate — and discovered that he was making a significant bequest to the Institute. Now she is also planning an estate gift — and is making her annual donations directly from her IRA, a strategy known as the IRA rollover that is considered particularly wise because it saves taxes.

"When I give my required minimum distribution from my IRA directly to the Institute, it is not subject to tax but still counts as my required distribution," explains Frances, who credited the Committee's Janis Rabin with helping her with gift strategies. "It's a win-win situation: I would be giving anyway and was doing so before I turned 70½ and became eligible to give this way. But now I can give more."

Frances earned her doctorate in educational curriculum and research from Columbia University and was a school administrator for many years. She retired in 2001 as County Superintendent of Schools, Union County, New Jersey, and now lives in California.

Her father, Dr. William Weingarten, grew up in Eastern Europe and was in medical school in Vienna, Austria, when he had to flee the Nazis. He completed medical school at what is now Brandeis University and worked as a cardiologist in New York and California.

"We discussed Weizmann and all the breakthroughs they were coming up with; both of us decided to make our gifts to Weizmann's National Center for Personalized Medicine," Frances says. "The work that Weizmann does makes me proud — as a Jew and as a human being."