SCHUBERT, LELAND (11 June 1907-27 June 1998) was an educator and benefactor who with his wife Helen D. gave Mayor CARL B. STOKES' CLEVELAND NOW! program $1 million dollars in 1968 to help provide employment opportunities, improved housing and education for Cleveland's poor. Schubert was born in Toledo, OH to Arthur H. Schubert, an advertising manager, and Leila (Browne) Schubert. He graduated from West High School in Minneapolis, MN, received a bachelor's degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1930, a master's degree in fine arts from Yale University in 1934, and a doctorate in drama from Cornell University in 1938. Shubert taught drama, speech an literature at Ohio Wesleyan, Carleton College, and Madison College in Harrisonburg Va. In 1956 he retired as chairman of the Madison College English department and moved to Cleveland.
Schubert, who met Helen Keller when he was fifteen, became a certified Braille transcriber in 1960. He wrote a Braille teaching book for sighted parents to teach their blind children to read and transcribed books for the Cleveland Society for the Blind (see CLEVELAND SIGHT CENTER OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE BLIND) and the Red Cross Braille Service for Cleveland. He donated his 5,000 rare theater book collection to the CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE, then contributed the money to build the Leland and Helen Schubert Library in which to house them. His contributions to Cleveland Now!, CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY, Help for Retarded Children, Central State University, the URBAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL and other organizations were made possible by the AHS Foundation which Schubert established with a bequest from his father in 1968. He was a trustee of the CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA's MUSICAL ARTS ASSOCIATION, Cleveland Play House, the former WOODRUFF HOSPITAL in Cleveland, the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, and Project Bridge. He and his wife received the Catholic Interracial Council of Cleveland's Interracial Justice Award in 1971 and shared an honorary doctorate from JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY.
Schubert married Helen Dwan in 1931 and had three sons John, Gage and Lee. Schubert died of complications following surgery at the CLEVELAND CLINIC and is buried in the Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, MN.