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Nancy White Wheeler ’90
Including Miss Porter’s in her estate plans
After graduating from Miss Porter’s School in 1990, Nancy White Wheeler spent a summer at Surrogate’s Court in New York City helping to settle the estates of people who had died without wills. Upset to see their money transferred to city coffers, Mrs. Wheeler recorded her own final wishes on loose-leaf paper. Miss Porter’s School was a beneficiary of that first will and testament.
The task of sorting out the bank accounts of people whose money would become the property of New York City was “eye-opening,” said Mrs. Wheeler, who was 18 at the time. “I just wanted to make sure all of what little I had should be directed to the places I wanted it to go.” Now 48, a business owner and a married mother of three who lives in South Orange, New Jersey, she has updated her estate plans over the years. But one thing has remained constant: the unrestricted bequest to the school she calls “one of the best decisions I made in my life.” “Miss Porter’s remains very important to me, and keeping it in my will is an easy and meaningful thing to do,” said Mrs. Wheeler, who has served as a trustee, on the Alumnae Board and in many other capacities as an Ancient. She is the founder and principal of Financy, an educational consultancy that helps young people build financial literacy. Mrs. Wheeler, like many Miss Porter’s girls, attended the school with the help of financial aid. She then worked her way through the University of Pennsylvania. She knows how important it is for the school to have resources to help promising young women get a Miss Porter’s education. And she believes the current pandemic has made a Porter’s education more important than ever. “We’ve lost more than a million women in the workplace,” she said of those who had to stop working during the pandemic. “One of the ways I can do some small part to empower women and the success of women is to support women who come through Miss Porter’s. That is truly what’s on my mind.”
