The Baltimore-Washington Institute for Psychoanalysis received a $5 million bequest from Paul Mellon. Mellon died at the age of ninety-one on February 1, 1999. The bequest will provide an endowment for the institute.

Mellon also gave $320,000 toward the establishment of a nursery school project and related programs and has bequeathed a collection of Anna Freud's works and a series of handwritten letters exchanged by Anna Freud and Mellon between July 1959 and June 1978.

Mellon's largesse to the Baltimore-Washington Institute grew out of his gratitude for his analysis in the 1950s with Jenny Waelder-Hall, who was one of the founders of the institute. A Viennese émigré who had been analyzed by Anna Freud, Waelder-Hall was a training and supervising analyst and one of the teaching pillars of the institute.

Of his analysis, Mellon wrote in his biography, Reflections in a Silver Spoon, “I can truthfully say that my whole outlook on life, my interests and responsibilities, on my relationships with my family and friends, my business and foundation colleagues, was changed for the better through my analysis with Dr. Hall.”

It is clear that Mellon was convinced that the Baltimore-Washington Institute would be an excellent steward of his gifts and would continue its high level of training so that others might benefit from successful analyses as he had.