Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Robert Jr. TOLAND
Robert Toland Jr., 91, a fund-raiser for nonprofit agencies who helped change a state park into what is now Valley Forge National Historical Park in 1976, died Friday, Aug. 10, at Beaumont at Bryn Mawr, a retirement community. He was a longtime Paoli resident.
Mr. Toland was founding chairman of Citizens to Save Valley Forge Park, his daughter Susan LeFevre said.
In a 2007 letter to Mr. Toland, Nathaniel P. Reed, assistant secretary of the interior in the administration of President Gerald R. Ford, wrote:
"The transformation of a neglected state park into one of the most important historical national parks in the system, more important today as ever, remains one of those triumphs of organized citizenry.
"You were responsible for the ever-growing sentiment," Reed wrote, that resulted in Ford's signing a bill on July 4, 1976, to make Valley Forge Park a federally protected entity.
"It was a worthy effort," Reed wrote 31 years after the event, "and I thank you for being a part of it."
Born in Chestnut Hill, Mr. Toland graduated from Episcopal Academy in 1940 and was a stateside Marine pilot and flight instructor during World War II, his daughter said.
Mr. Toland earned a bachelor's degree at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., in 1947 and a master's of business administration at Harvard Business School in 1949, and was an assistant manager at Smith, Kline & French Laboratories in Philadelphia until 1952.
He was vice president of development for the Academy of Natural Sciences from 1970 to 1972, for Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania from 1972 to 1978, and for the Emergency Care Research Institute in Plymouth Meeting from 1979 to 1986, his daughter said.
Mr. Toland was a trustee and a chairman of the board of fellows at Trinity College, she said, and he helped make the college coeducational.
As a volunteer, he was an officer for Creative Alternatives for Women, Episcopal Community Services, the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, and the Schuylkill Valley Nature Center.
Besides his daughter, Mr. Toland is survived by his wife of 64 years, Marian; sons Ben, David, and Charles; another daughter, Lilah; nine grandchildren; two sisters; and a brother. Another brother, Harry, died earlier this year.
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