Contributor Profiles

Agnes Macdonald & Laura Auer

Agnes Macdonald and Laura Auer were sisters - daughters of Christian Steenstrup, an inventor who worked for GE. Steenstrup was responsible for numerous inventions, including the development of the home refrigerator. When they died twelve days apart in March 1996, Agnes and Laura left behind an estate valued at $41 million. Most was left to charitable organizations, with The Schenectady Foundation as the primary recipient.

Agnes, a graduate of Schenectady High School, and a pragmatic business woman, was bookkeeper to the local family business, S.R. Manufacturing Co., which manufactured pulleys. Laura was a physical education instructor at local schools and at Russell Sage College.

Agnes was an outstanding but unassuming philanthropist in her community for many years - her many acts of kindness and generosity were not widely known. Agnes served on The Schenectady Foundation's Distribution (grants) Committee.

Laura also served her community, volunteering with the YWCA, First Reformed Church, and the Ellis Hospital School of Nursing, for which she was a member of the Board of Directors. A quiet, friendly lady, she was an expert gardener who was active in several area gardening clubs.

In a 1990 interview with the Daily Gazette, Macdonald was quoted as saying: I've been around for a long time. I feel Schenectady deserves a little of what I have."

Their father, Christian Steenstrup, was born in Denmark in 1873. At the age of 20 he left for America and found a job at a Bridgeport, Connecticut manufacturing company. In 1901 he moved to Schenectady to seek work with GE where he started as a mechanic. In 1925 Steenstrup was assigned to work on designing a trouble-free mechanism for electric refrigerators. The sealed unit he developed and improved from 1928 to 1938 represented one of the most significant changes in technology, making home refrigeration accessible to millions. By the time Chris retired in 1945 he was one of the nation's leading inventors with 129 patents to his credit.