Couple Who Were WWII Vets Leave $12 Million to Hampden-Sydney College

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Hampden-Sydney College

Sarah Dickinson and Blair Dickinson Jr. left $12 million to Blair’s alma mater. College officials did not provide details about how the bequest would be used other than to say it would support academics.

Sarah (Lucile) Lawton Dickinson was a World War II veteran and sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps as a member of the women’s division of the aviation corps. She later became a teacher and met Blair Dickinson Jr. shortly after the war when they were instructors at North Carolina State University. She died in 2019 at 95.

Blair Dickinson Jr., a 1937 Hampden-Sydney graduate and a naval officer during World War II, was a teacher and high-school principal in the United States and abroad when he and Sarah accepted teaching assignments at American Dependents’ schools at overseas postings in Japan, Germany, and Italy. He died in 1984.

Emory University

John and Rosemary Brown pledged $10 million to establish the John and Rosemary Brown Family Innovation to Market Fund within Emory School of Medicine, which will back the development and marketing of new medical technologies.

The money will also be used to launch the Rosemary and John Brown Family Scholars Program within Emory’s Goizueta Business School, which will support women enrolling in the business school who are alumnae of Spelman College and Agnes Scott College, both of which are women’s colleges in Atlanta.

John Brown is chairman emeritus of Stryker Corporation, a Kalamazoo, Mich., company that develops medical devices and surgical equipment. Rosemary Brown is a retired teacher who taught math in schools in Kalamazoo and East Brunswick, N.J.

Pope Francis Center

Gerald and Marilyn Burke gave $7 million through their Julia Burke Foundation to help pay for the construction of a new housing complex to house people experiencing chronic homelessness in Detroit and provide medical, respite, psychological, addiction, and social and job-readiness services to its residents.

Gerald Burke is an investor in Lafayette, Calif. The couple established their foundation in 1998 and named it for their daughter Julia, who died in a car crash that year. She was 16.

The foundation supports charities that provide food and other services to those struggling to pay for basic needs, and groups dedicated to education and social-justice programs.

East Carolina University

Beatrice Chauncey left $5.2 million for scholarships for students in the School of Music. The bequest doubles the amount of scholarship money the university’s music school can award.

Chauncey was a flute instructor who helped to grow the university’s music department over her 41-year tenure there into the music school it is today. She retired in 1990 but stayed involved with the School of Music in her later years.

She was a lifelong private investor who would proudly show friends the room in her house dedicated to her trading research. When she planned her bequest in 2011, her original commitment was $500,000 but through savvy investing, it grew into the millions by the time she died in 2017.

Mary Baldwin University

William Goodwin Jr. and his wife, Alice Tolley Goodwin, pledged $5 million to expand the university’s Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences and to support a new Doctor of Nursing Practice hybrid-degree program.

Of the total, $2.5 million will be used to establish new research opportunities that connect basic research to clinical practice for Doctor of Nursing Practice students and faculty, and the remaining $2.5 million will pay for the start-up costs for the DNP program, including new faculty salaries, facility upgrades, and equipment.

William Goodwin is a retired chairman and president of the Riverstone Group, a Richmond, Va., company that owns hotels and resorts. Alice Tolley Goodwin is a Mary Baldwin College alumnae, class of 1966.

University of California at Irvine

Linda and Mike Mussallem gave $5 million to create an integrative cardiology training program in the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute, as well as support and research into how integrating lifestyle, complementary therapies, and digital health tools can improve cardiometabolic health.

The money will also be used to establish a UC systemwide integrative health-coaching certificate program and an integrative cardiology patient database that UCI researchers and others will be able to access so they can better understand how lifestyle changes combined with various interventions affect the health of cardiac patients.

Mike Mussallem is chairman and CEO of Edwards Lifesciences, a medical-device and technology company in Irvine, Calif., that specializes in developing heart valves. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the UCI Foundation. Linda Mussallem is an integrative-health advocate and serves on the institute’s advisory board.

University of Wyoming

Ann Ramsay donated $1.8 million to support the salaries of employees who work for UW Extension’s 4-H program, in Teton County, Wyo., a favorite of the late Elizabeth McCabe, Ramsay’s mother.

McCabe was local businesswoman who co-owned the Jackson Hole Guide newspaper, which later became the Jackson Hole News & Guide. She died in 2012.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.