WASHINGTON — In a gilded but often lonely life, Cordelia Scaife May, heiress to one of America's most storied fortunes, had a few cherished passions.
Protecting birds was one. Keeping immigrants out was another.
An ardent environmentalist more comfortable with books and birds than with high-society galas, May believed nature was under siege from runaway population growth. Before her death in 2005, she devoted much of her wealth to rolling back the tide — backing birth control and curbing immigration, both legal and illegal.
Today, May's influence is stronger than ever. Her Pittsburgh-based Colcom Foundation has been the single-largest donor to the anti-immigration cause, providing more than $76 million over the last decade to groups that now are fighting to block immigration overhaul efforts in Congress.
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In hyperpartisan Washington, most immigration opponents focus on beefing up border security and blocking any path to legal status for immigrants in the country without authorization.
May was driven by other concerns.
"Her worry in life, almost, was population control," said horticulturist George A. Griffith, a longtime friend. "I think she would stay awake at night just worrying about what would happen" to the environment from too many people.
"She loved animals almost more than people," Griffith said.
May also fretted about how immigrants might change America. She became a key backer of John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist who founded a network of anti-immigration groups. In the 1980s, she paid to distribute in the United States a best-selling French novel called "The Camp of the Saints," which imagines poverty-stricken Third World immigrants overwhelming the West and destroying civilization.
May, known as "Cordy," never knew poverty. Her mother, Sarah, was a member of the Mellon family. One of the country's great financial dynasties, the family controls Mellon Bank and vast wealth in aluminum, oil and steel companies.
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May's brother, Richard Mellon Scaife, a major supporter of conservative organizations and causes, also has backed anti-immigration groups. His lawyer, Yale Gutnick, says Scaife is concerned about immigration's impact on national security: "When you open the gates, who's looking at who's coming in?"
Born in 1928, May had a gloomy childhood with nurses and governesses in the family mansion, Penguin Court, outside Pittsburgh. She later said the only time she heard laughter in the home was during visits from her mother's friend Margaret Sanger, the social reformer who founded what became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
"She was the one who put what fun there was into our lives," May told Burton Hersh for his 1978 history of the Mellon family.
May became a generous supporter of Planned Parenthood, which in its early days supported population control. May kept a portrait of Sanger in her living room, and a "Stop the stork" bumper sticker on her Mercedes.
May also became a near recluse. She gave away millions of dollars annually to support educational, cultural and conservation causes with the provision that her involvement be kept secret.
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Her millions didn't bring her happiness. Like her mother and other family members, she battled alcoholism. She named her home Cold Comfort, a wry reference to "Cold Comfort Farm," a popular 1932 comic novel about a woman "of every art and grace save that of earning her own living."
And when she died, she left more than $400 million — nearly half her fortune — to the Colcom Foundation, named for the same book. The foundation's mission is to promote "sustainable" immigration that won't overwhelm the environment or the economy, according to John Rohe, Colcom's vice president for philanthropy.
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