This recession has no lack of villains. There are predatory lenders, super scammers like Bernard Madoff, and propped-up CEOs who insist on their multimillion-dollar bonuses while Americans lose their homes and watch their savings plunge. But there is also a group of Americans who have done extraordinarily generous things, even as the economy around them crumbles. Call them recession angels, people who have taken their own money and given it to employees and their communities just as everybody else has been cutting back. Take Grace Groner, who passed away in January at the age of 100. For much of her adult life she lived modestly in a one bedroom home in Lake Forest, Illinois, an affluent Chicago, suburb. Groner’s single indulgence was a scholarship program she created for Lake Forest College,, her alma mater. Years ago, she donated $180,000 for a scholarship program that enables some of the college’s 1,300 students to pursue internships and study-abroad programs. But even college administrators were stunned to find out that upon her death Groner bequeathed her entire estate to the college. The total amount: $7 million. Stephen Schutt, Lake Forest’s president, told the Chicago Tribune that he […]