Cordelia Scaife May, heiress to the Mellon fortune and a reclusive yet generous philanthropist whose net worth of roughly $800 million put her among the 400 wealthiest people in the country, died yesterday at Cold Comfort, her Ligonier home.

Cordelia Scaife May

The cause of death was not disclosed, but Mrs. May was 76 and recently suffered from pain in her spine and had difficulty walking.

She was known simply as Cordy to family and friends, who remembered a warm and giving person who crafted a witty note, told a great story and kept a keen watch over her charitable interests, which supported conservation and Planned Parenthood among other causes.

Although Mrs. May used her maiden name and the surname of her first husband, Herbert A. May Jr., she was the widow of former Allegheny County District Attorney Robert W. Duggan, who killed himself with a shotgun in 1974, hours before being indicted by a grand jury for income tax evasion and racketeering.

Although his death was ruled a suicide, questions surrounded the circumstances, and his family, including Mrs. May, maintained he had been murdered. The scandal rocked the political and the powerful in Allegheny County..

Even before her husband's death, Mrs. May eschewed publicity in all forms and guarded her privacy zealously. By all accounts, including her own, she was the proverbial poor little rich girl, who despite the trappings of wealth, battled with her family, failed at love and fought alcohol addiction. She did not like to appear in public, nor did she wish to see her name in print .

Through the Laurel Foundation, which she established in 1951, Mrs. May gave away millions of dollars in grants annually on the condition that the recipient not disclose her name or that of the foundation.

	Cordelia Scaife May was an avid supporter of the National Aviary of Pittsburgh, as well as other charitable interests. Click photo for larger image.

"She often said she had the ability to fund the programs but that it was the special people who were committed to making the programs happen who deserved the attention," said Donna Panazzi, vice president of the Laurel Foundation.

The foundation funds cultural, educational, conservation and beautification initiatives in the U.S. Locally, the foundation supports the Montour Trail, the National Aviary of Pittsburgh, the RiverLife Task Force, the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, and the Women's Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh.

It was only after much coaxing that Mrs. May finally allowed the foundation to take a public role in The Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh's popular "DinoMite Days," which featured dinosaur replicas all over the city.

Panazzi said the foundation's seven-member staff viewed Mrs. May as a sensitive and appreciative boss who also was "a friend and a family member." Each month, Mrs. May would insist on closing the foundation offices for a day and she would join the staff on an outing to a museum, the National Aviary or a picnic lunch at the Point in Point State Park.

"She was like a child, so excited about showing off this city," Panazzi said.

Mrs. May also was a gifted raconteur whose vivid description of her stories' settings made listening to her a delight.

"She was just so articulate. When she told a story, it was like watching a movie," Panazzi said.

Michael Strueber, an artist and director emeritus of the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in Loretto, Cambria County, said Mrs. May was "one of the kindest, most generous people I've ever known in my life. She was loyal to a flaw. I'm a better person for having known her.

"What she did, in most cases, she did anonymously. She wanted no public accolades," Strueber said. "That's the rarest kind of philanthropy. She did things because she believed in them."

Among her passions was horticulture, and in particular she supported the Pacific Tropical Botantical Garden in Hawaii, said her longtime friend George A. Griffith, of Johnstown, a horticulturist.

"We went there a number of times," he said. "She would come across as if she knew nothing, but she knew so much. She was just so modest. She was so bright, yet so modest. She was the brightest person I've ever known."

Mrs. May lived atop a hill in Ligonier in a home that was neither large nor lavish, according to her personal lawyer, David Armstrong.

"It was a lovely place in the woods. She really loved living there," Armstrong said, adding that her Christmas card for 2004 showed Mrs. May standing in her driveway, dressed casually in blue slacks, a red blouse and a sweater with puppies on it. Mrs. May's arm was flung around Santa.

Mrs. May, who was born in 1928, was the eldest child of Sarah Cordelia Mellon and Alan Magee Scaife. She was reared by governesses and nurses in the protective confines of Penguin Court, the family's Ligonier estate which she would later describe as palatial, but never happy.

Like other young women of her social class, she was educated at the private, yet progressive Falk School and later at the more conservative Ellis School.

By her own admission she was "one of the more contumacious students -- I was urged not to return," she told Burton Hersh, author of an extensive Mellon family history.

She later graduated from Foxcroft School in Virginia.

Mrs. May wanted to study languages and attended Carnegie Tech and the University of Pittsburgh for a short while before dropping out to marry. She eventually returned to Pitt and studied British history.

On June 30, 1949, she wed the outgoing Herbert May Jr., in an understated ceremony at East Liberty Presbyterian that was followed by a lavish reception at the Scaife family home.

Less than a year later, the couple was divorced.

"We were just unsuited," Mrs. May told Hersh.

After her family banished her to Palm Beach, Fla., for four years because of the embarrassment of a divorce, Mrs. May returned to Pittsburgh and renewed a her friendship with Duggan.

The two had known and liked each other since childhood, but her family discouraged the relationship because he was of a lower social status and Catholic. His family later objected to the fact that she was a divorcee.But Mrs. May and Duggan had a bond that only grew stronger as the years went by and his political star rose. The two traveled together through Europe, dated on Saturday nights and it was Duggan who most supported her efforts at recovery from alcoholism, according to Hersh's book.

The two were so much a part of each other's lives, that Mrs. May's only sibling, her younger brother Richard Mellon Scaife, the philanthropist and publisher of the Greensburg Tribune-Review, treated Duggan like a member of the family.

By the summer of 1973, though, Duggan, who had been elected district attorney three times, was the target of a grand jury investigation that linked him to organized crime, slush funds and tax evasion. He had lost much of his support, including Scaife's. Despite ever worsening allegations, Mrs. May remained staunchly loyal to Duggan, and in doing so, fractured her relationship with her brother. Their estrangement would last for decades until a recent reconciliation.

On Aug. 29, 1973, Mrs. May and Duggan stole away to Nevada where they wed in secret. Their union came just days after Mrs. May was notified by the Internal Revenue Service that she would have to answer questions about Duggan, leading to speculation that the marriage was calculated because a wife cannot be compelled to testify against her husband.

Throughout her life, Mrs. May refused to dignify such speculation. She remained steadfast in her belief that he was innocent, despite mounting evidence. "Why did I marry Bob? I married him because it was the most overt thing I could possibly do to affirm my faith in him just then," she told Hersh.

She quietly memorialized her late husband with a plaque at the entrance of the Southern Alleghenies Museum.

Arrangements are by the Thomas L. Nied Funeral Home, Swissvale.

The family plans to hold a private memorial service.

Contributions may be made to the Helen M. Schmidt Bird Theatre at the National Aviary of Pittsburgh, Allegheny Commons West, Pittsburgh PA 15212.