Elizabeth Marshall Continues to Make History

Planned Gift Ensures Support Beyond a Lifetime

Elizabeth Marshall’s generous spirit and her love of history spanned her entire lifetime. Through a planned gift, her legacy lives on. 

A long-time Bourbon resident and daughter of ministers, Elizabeth Snider Marshall, or “Libby” as most knew her, played the church organ for many years. After becoming a nurse and working first in Indianapolis and then South Bend, she eventually returned to the area and served in Plymouth’s Parkview Hospital in the critical unit for 23 years. She and her late husband, lived in the historic 1883 Shakes House in Bourbon. Active community members, they avidly studied the history of Bourbon and the surrounding area.

Upon her death in 2011, Libby gave 160 acres of her land in Bourbon to the Marshall County Historical Society (MCHS) and, in turn, proceeds of the $1 million sale, were added to the MCHS Endowment Fund and a new nonpermanent fund at the Community Foundation. In addition, Libby donated her home with six acres of land directly to the Marshall County Community Foundation, naming the First United Methodist Church of Bourbon as the beneficiary of annual distributions.

Through planned giving, Elizabeth Marshall is still serving the communities of Marshall County. Her generosity lives on and, in recognition, she is a perpetual member of the John Marshall Legacy Society at the Marshall County Community Foundation.