Bill Chong remembers the first day he met Catherine “Ma” Wilson. The retired owner of Haines Printing was in his first week of Grade Nine when the teacher hauled him by the ear to the front of her class. She dropped him in the front row, near her desk, evicting the student who’d claimed the spot. “I didn’t know her but she knew me,” said Chong, 59.

“This must be Ma.” Unbeknownst to Chong, Wilson was already a friend of his father, aunt and uncles and wanted to keep a close eye on him, he said. The late Catherine Wilson taught English at SCITS for 35 years and made an impact on countless Sarnians as an educator. But she also set up a charitable foundation that’s helping the community grow to this day. In fact, the Catherine Wilson Foundation was in the news recently when it donated an eyebrow-raising $200,000 to the “save the pool” campaign at Pathways Health Centre for Children. An English teacher with a multi-million dollar foundation? Just who was this ‘Ma’ Wilson? Wilson was an only child who led a quiet life and never married or had children. She was the daughter of a ship captain and rain her classroom in similar fashion, recalled Chong, who grew up to become his teacher’s life-long friend. “She didn’t put up with a lot of bullshit,” he said, smiling. Chong and his pals would often drop by Wilson’s home after school hours “just to bug her,” he said. “Nowadays, that would be a no-no, to go hang out with a teacher. But it was a different time,” he said.

One year, Chong invited Wilson to his family Thanksgiving, and after that her presence was a given at most family holiday gatherings until she died a decade ago, he said. Sometimes she would show up with friends, often single women and widows from St. Andrew’s Presbyterian, the church Wilson and the Chongs attended. “How the hell do we get 30 people for dinner” Chong remembers his mother asking once. “Only five of us are related!” But Catherine Wilson was not loved by everyone. School administrators and city politicians were often the target of her ire, Chong said. “She was very strong-willed. She spoke her mind,” he said. “(But) she’d listen to me. She’d let me tell her to “smarten up”. Wilson made regular and sizable financial donations to SCITS, to St. Andrew’s Church, to Western University and other charities and non-profits, often making them anonymously. She was a frugal woman and saved much of what she earned as a teacher. But her real wealth came form playing the stock market, Chong said. He remembers her once nonchalantly mentioning she’d just made $10,000 on an investment in Rollerblades, the company that made inline skating a phenomenon.

Wilson set up her foundation in 1988, but it eventually became inactive over a dispute with Revenue Canada. Taking over the estate following Wilson’s death, Chong discovered Wilson had saved a considerable sum. He has restarted the Foundation and currently sits on its board. Its mandate is to promote a sense of community by helping individuals and organizations reach their full potential. Lat year, the Catherine Wilson Foundation quietly donated $124,000 to 10 local groups and charities. Education remains a priority, with more than $40,000 in scholarships the past two years going to students at Great Lakes Secondary, the school that amalgamated with SCITS.