About the Warwick Foundation
About the Warwick Foundation
The Warwick Foundation of Bucks County is a private charitable foundation of the Gemmill Family. Founded in 1961 by Kenneth W. and Helen Hartmann Gemmill, the Warwick Foundation has distributed more than $8 million in grants to organizations in Bucks County during the last 11 years as well as provided scholarships to promising students living in Bucks County.
About the Founders of the Warwick Foundation
Kenneth W. Gemmill was a nationally respected tax attorney and served President Dwight D. Eisenhower as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for tax policy. He was the principle author of the 1954 Tax Code, which remained the nation’s law until 1986. He later served President Richard M. Nixon as tax counsel for specific matters during the Watergate years. Kenneth W. Gemmill was an alumnus of Mercersberg Academy, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He was a partner at the law firm of Dechert LLP (at the time known as Dechert Price & Rhoads) where he served as Chairman of the Policy Committee during his last six years of practicing law. Also, Kenneth W. Gemmill served regionally on the boards of Delaware Valley College, the Bucks County Historical Society, the Heritage Conservancy and as Warwick supervisor.
Helen Hartman Gemmill, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, and once assistant editor of Vogue Magazine was an active and generous member of the Bucks County Historical Society and Mercer Museum, Bucks County Community College and the Doylestown Nature Club. She led a movement that resulted in the restoration of the Aldie Mansion in Doylestown and served on the board of the Free Library of Philadelphia. She was devoted to the region’s history and was a respected writer of two books (one unfinished at the time of her death) and numerous other tracts on the subject. Helen Hartman Gemmill’s volunteer legacy includes everything from washing windows to saving historic properties.
The Gemmills were also generous benefactors of the Heritage Conservancy, the Bucks County Historical Society, the James A. Michener Art Museum, Moland House, Central Bucks YMCA, Doylestown Hospital, the Bucks County Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Helen Hartman Gemmill died of a stroke on December 11, 1998 at Doylestown Hospital and Kenneth W., her husband, died moments later of a lengthy illness at Five Spruce Farm, ending lives filled with distinction and service to others. She was 80 years old and he was 88.