A 101-year-old Edmonton widow is locked in a legal battle with the Rotary Foundation of Canada to change her husband’s will and disburse their $40 million estate in accordance with his final wishes.

Mary McEachern is 101 years old. Her husband, Steve, died in September 2020.

“I was married to Steve for 72 years. He would tell me, every year, he would take my hand and say, well, kid, we made it another year. But we didn’t make it,” McEachern said.

When Steve died, his estate was worth $40 million.

“When they first met, they lived in a one-room apartment and they had nothing,” said Trish Young, Steve and Mary’s niece.

While Mary worked full-time as a nurse, Steve built a business with a group of investors. They had no children.

In his will, Steve provided for Mary to be taken care of and, after her death, the remainder of her fortune would be donated entirely to the Rotary Foundation of Canada. He was a member for 45 years.

But, according to Mary and their niece, Steve changed his mind about which charities should benefit before his death. This happened at the start of the COVID pandemic.

“He was 99 years old, he wanted to change his will but we were in full confinement and his lawyer, aged 82, was retired. And his wife was 96 years old. There would be absolutely no way for us to hire a lawyer there. And also, my uncle was very frail, this was in the last six months of his life,” Young explained.

CityNews contacted Rotary. They dispute the family’s claims that the $40 million estate remains intact.

“If that is their perception, I am truly sorry. Because it’s not rotating. Honestly, that’s not who we are,” said Dean Rohrs, former vice-president of the Rotary Foundation of Canada.

Rohrs says the foundation didn’t know about Steve McEachern’s will until 18 months after his death. She insists that Rotary is a family and that she would have done everything possible to avoid the courts.

“But we have worked very hard with Ms. McEachern’s legal teams. And knowing that we have worked with several legal teams. That means that every time we deal with a new team, every time we ask our questions, every time we try to identify exactly what the basic information is, we have to start from ground zero,” Rohrs said.

Mary McEachern is 101 years old and engaged in a legal battle with the Rotary Foundation of Canada. (Photo provided)

Mary’s niece says the Rotary Foundation has not spoken directly to Mary or the family since Steve’s death.

“It makes me really sad, Mary has never received a call from anyone at Rotary Canada to say we are so sorry to hear of your husband’s passing. Not a map. No flowers. She had no communication. And yet, they are on the front line to say yes, these 40 million dollars belong to us. And I think it’s outrageous,” Young said.

Rohrs, however, says: “There was contact on our part. There was a writing in his book of memories, and there was a notification from the Rotary Foundation itself, there was a card or a letter that had been sent. You know, when you experience so much loss, sometimes things get missed. So this can be forgiven if it wasn’t seen or noted.

Mary is now appealing to the public to ask Rotary to reconsider its position and open a dialogue.

“There are 700 local Rotary clubs in Canada, representing 1.2 million Rotarians. Who are, and I want to emphasize this, they work hard, they are on the ground, they put in their time and effort, and I think they would be shocked to know that all the good work that they do is what I consider it tarnished by the way Rotary Canada is handling this particular situation,” Young said.

Rohrs says: “This problem needs to be resolved. Ms. McEachern, in fairness to her and to other thoughts, it doesn’t have to be a legal thing. We had no choice, we had no choice. At the stage we were involved, there was already a legal issue.”