TOBY PINGREE'S PASSING

 

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THE FOUNDATION’S FIRST & LAST CONTRIBUTOR, J. Frederick “Toby” Pingree , passes on. The link to his Memorial Site is: 

 https://everloved.com/life-of/job-pingree/ 

MEMORY FROM:

Cordell Andersen — "I met Toby in Guatemala City on May 2, 1956. I had just arrived as a new missionary speaking no Spanish--even having failed my Spanish class in High School, but now had to learn. Before being sent to Costa Rica the next day, I spent that first day with Toby who was in the Mission Presidency. We traveled around the city on buses and visited investigators--and while doing so Toby taught me my first phrases in Spanish I choosing a couple of sentences that was my testimony of the Restored Gospel. He inspired me with the courage to stand in a Testimony Meeting the next Sunday in San Jose, Costa Rica  to bear my testimony using as best I could those phrases. I never saw Toby again during the Mission, but afterwards we became life-long friends and 9 years later after moving back to Guatemala to dedicate my life to the Mayan people, Toby was the first to help with a loan to help establish my agro-business, then later when my father established the Foundation for Indian Development, his loan was turned into the first donation of $5,000. Later he and his brother George became life-long Trustees for the Foundation and generous supporters throughout their lives--Toby being the first and the last to help in SAVING THOUSANDS AND HELPING MANY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF MAYANS TO RECEIVE AN EDUCATION . Toby was next to my father as a supporter and the most sincere and virtuous man I've ever known--listed on the Guatemalan Foundation's FINAL REPORT  as the 2nd of the TWELVE STRONG that made the Foundation for 50 years. He loved and was loved and will be missed dearly by uncountable Mayas he helped to flourish." 

Toby visiting the Ariel & Ines Andersen School in the Chuluc village of Patzicia, Guatemala soon after its inauguration in 1987.

March 2, 2021 

Cordell Andersen — "I guess I should say I'm sorry for again adding something to the record of Toby--but there is so much that wasn't mentioned anywhere. Toby's dedication to the Mayan peoples of Guatemala through what today is the GUATEMALAN FOUNDATION, that I have to add to his 50+ years of history helping to save THOUSANDS & AIDING TENS OF THOUSANDS TO GET AN EDUCATION. By 1982 we had taken over what had been a private school named originally the John Paul II School in Patzicia, and had to build for them for the first time their own school. It had been organized after the Great Earthquake of 1976 when all the schools in the Central Highlands had been destroyed. A Catholic Priest helped a group of poor Indians to organize the school with support by a the Protestant organization World Vision, but by 1981 was being run by a Parent's Committee of Mormons, and was being abandoned by World Vision. We stepped in to save the school but by 1983 my father had passed on and we were in crisis to finish building the new school and support its 230 Indian students. Toby brought his brother GEORGE on board who donated the Cottonwood Optical to the Foundation, and then sold it to Knighton Optical for around $100,000+ that totally supported the school for 10 years during which time the name was changed to The Andersen School by the Indian parents. George continued to support the Guatemalan Foundation, along with Toby until both of their passing. Many thousands of Mayan Indians owe their "blossoming life" to the Pingree's and all the others who continued to support the Foundation until it's retirement on its GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY on August 19, 2017. Thanks to Toby and George and many others for stretching out our work from the predicted 6 months to 50 years! How we all love and miss both of them. See the history at www.guatemalanfoundation.org. 

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Click for:  HISTORY NOW A BOOK:  A Fifty-Year "Impossible Dream" Among My People in the Mountains of the Maya