January 28, 2004 Hopedale History No. 7 The Anonymous Donor    The George Albert Draper Gymnasium On January 22 a banner honoring Hopedale High basketball players who had scored more than 1,000 points was raised at the General Draper Gym.  At the what???  Well, that's what it said in the Milford News story the next night.  Has George Albert Draper really been promoted to general?  A mistake on the part of the reporter, I suppose.  The players honored were, Justin Lewis, who had passed the 1,000 mark in December, Don Lutz, (1963), Larry Heron, (1970), Cheryl Daudelin, (1989), Chris Tattrie, (1992), and Gina Richards.    Let's move on to another Milford News story about the gym.  It was built with a $350,000 anonymous donation. As far as I know, the donor's name has never been made public. The speculation, of course, was that it must have been a Draper, but what Draper? Princess Margaret Draper Boncompagni was mentioned as a possibility, but I don't think it was her. Here's my guess.   Basketball will make its debut in the new $350,000 gymnasium early in December, according to present plans.  The building, made possible by a donor who desires to remain unknown, will become part of Hopedale Community House, Inc., with the same managing board.  Gordon A. Norton, director, is in charge of both buildings.  Milford Daily News, October 31, 1955. Who could this donor have been?  Perhaps the name of the gym is a clue: The George Albert Draper Gymnasium.  George had two children; Helen and Wickliffe. [Sometimes spelled Wyckliffe] Helen, twice married (the first time to a nephew of William Howard Taft) and twice divorced, didn't have any children and died in 1933.  Wickliffe, who had received about half of his father's $10.7 million estate in 1923, received most of the rest of it when his sister died. He never married and spent his life giving his money away, usually anonymously.  Most of this money was donated through an organization known as The Pioneer Fund. Perhaps he wanted to have his father's name honored and remembered in Hopedale.  George Albert gave the money to build the Community House but it wasn't named for him.  Now we have a building that is.  It seems that Wickliffe, more than anyone else, would have wanted the gym named after George A. Draper.  Of course, it's possible that another donor gave the money and the authority to make all decisions  concerning the building, including its name, to the trustees of the Community House. If so, the name would have been a logical choice for them to make.  This seems less likely, but possible.    I wrote the paragraph above several years ago; probably in 2003. I hadn't seen any sort of evidence regarding Wickliffe and the gym, other that the circumstances mentioned above. In July 2006, while looking through some old Hopedale material at the Bancroft Library, I came across a handwritten paper about the gym that begins with the following paragraph:    "The building of the gymnasium was made possible only because of the gift of money for the purpose by one who wished to remain anonymous. It later became knowledge that Wickliffe Draper gave the gymnasium in memory of his father."    Unfortunately, the writer of this paragraph is also anonymous.  I think it was probably written by Hopedale Community Historical Society member,  Margaret Woodhead. There are several other papers by her, written for the society, with similar handwriting.  The idea that the donor was Wickliffe was probably held by people who knew who was who in the Draper family, including members of the Historical Society, but I don't think it was a common belief around town. Wickliffe had spent very little time in Hopedale after the early 1920s, and by 1955 there weren't many people who remembered him.        George Albert Draper Gymnasium             Hopedale History Email Menu              HOME