Many Are Wise But Few Are Kind

“There are many wise people but few are kind,” my beloved grandma Katya said to me once. She passed away a while ago but her simple lesson still lives in me and often serves as a moral compass.

This is the main topic discussed with another “Grandma Katya” — a 102-year-old American from Tarrytown on the Hudson, NY, named Kathryn Davis. Twenty years ago, this petite woman helped take down the Berlin wall with a hammer in her hand, and now she is financing a significant number of programs with her philanthropic fund. These programs aim to strengthen peace, friendship and mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and Russia.

There are so many programs that it’s easy to lose count. These programs are involved with many centers, libraries, museums, universities and colleges in the U.S., including Harvard and Princeton. A fellowship program called “United World” pays for students from 175 countries to study at 88 leading U.S. institutions. A prestigious annual award that honors outstanding contributions in the development of Russo-American relations at the Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C., bears her name and the name of her late husband, Shelby M.C. Davis.

During the establishment of this award in 2006, the Director of the Institute, Blair Ruble, said, “Kathryn Davis and her family have done far more than any other institution, group, or individual in this country to ensure that the United States will continue to have the capacity to study Russia in the years ahead.” In the words of New York Times, she “is riding to the rescue of Russian studies in the United States, becoming what experts believe is the largest private donor to programs that, with the end of the cold war, can no longer count on easy money from the government and foundations.”

Kathryn herself downplays the compliments. “I am not a remarkable person, simply curious…When I was young, I went to Russia and fell in love with your people,” she says. Speaking about kindness, she notes, “I want to be kind. I enjoy being helpful and being able to give people what they need.”

In fact she doesn’t know the exact value of her efforts because she admits to getting “mixed up with zeros.” Her assistants confirm that the dollar amount is adding up to tens of millions.

In the words of Kathryn Davis, in her long life she has been to Russia 34 times. Her first time in the USSR was in 1928, as part of a scientific anthropologic expedition to the Caucasus to check the hypothesis that American Indians were related to Svan Georgians. At that time her father was afraid to let her into the “communist den,” but as a result of the trip his daughter gained a lifelong interest in a country that is distant and mysterious to Americans.

Responding to questions about meeting Russian and Soviet leaders, Kathryn first clarifies that she “failed to meet” Lenin but saw Stalin once when she went to a rally where he was speaking. In fact, without giving her approval of “Stalinism,” she did note Soviet achievements in areas such as child care, homelessness and illiteracy.

In the 1930s in Geneva, where she and her husband were studying, Kathryn met Maksim Litvinov, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs. She chose the title of her dissertation, “The Soviets at Geneva: The USSR and the League of Nations, 1919-1933,” not only because of her interest of Russia but because no one had written about that topic. Later her work was published, and in 1969 she returned to Switzerland with her husband, Shelby Cullum Davis, who had been appointed as a U.S. Ambassador in Bern. He was a well-known investor in the U.S. who successfully increased his wife’s fortune many times.

Thanks to her family’s wealth and high social status, she has met many “world leaders” from Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan to Margaret Thatcher and Mao Zedong. She met Mikhail Gorbachev during the “perestroika” era in Moscow. Later he attended her 100th birthday at her winter residence in Florida.

For this, she is grateful to him. But, perhaps she thinks of him with the same delight she remembers meeting everyday Russians. For example, she has always loved weddings and would specifically go courthouses to watch the ceremonies. Several times, complete strangers invited her to join their celebration and she, an American, not knowing the Russian language, joined them at the table with pleasure.

From then on, Kathryn remembers a common Russian toast, “To Peace and Friendship!” But she not only remembers but also tries to personify it. Some years ago, she founded a fellowship at Middlebury College that supports 100 students studying foreign languages critical to the U.S., including Russian. She supports the American-Russian youth orchestra. And on her 100th birthday in 2007, she established a new program that every year grants 100 young people around the world $10,000 to realize their humanitarian and peace building initiatives.

Kathryn admittedly confessed that she hopes one of her young protégés can come up with the universal solution to world peace. “For now, it’s not working,” she sadly grins, “the war goes on.”

“Wishing for peace, we need to prepare for it, not for war,” notes this American, who in her lifetime survived two world conflicts. “Sooner or later everyone will have to understand that war is not the path to justice, and has never led to it.”

Leaving this position, Madam Davis, by her definition “deserted” the U.S. Republican party and at the last presidential election gave her vote to the Democrat Barack Obama. “It seemed to me, he is ready to lead America to peaceful resolutions,” she says. Supporting Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Award, she states, “I think he deserves this award. And hope that he accomplishes results.”

To the question whether she has ever regretted showing generosity, she followed with this firm answer: “The Heritage Foundation should not have been given so much. I don’t approve how they spend the money,” she says discontentedly, referring to the famous neo-conservative think tank where she and Thatcher are honorary council members. “There were other mistakes too,” she continues. “But in general, I would rather be considered too kind than not enough. If I am mistaken about it, what are you going to do? That’s it how it is.”

In February, Kathryn is going to celebrate her 103rd birthday. For her age, she has maintained an amazingly clear mind and memory and also enviable good health.