Thank you for considering a financial gift to our USC Memory and Aging Center
Our USC Memory and Aging Center is primarily funded through grants, foundations and industry. We also receive donations from the families and friends affected by Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia. It is these donations that allow us to stretch our efforts by stretching our available research dollars. From the smallest to the largest donation, we work hard to use all donation gifts prudently and efficiently. The donations have allowed us to purchase lab supplies for new investigators, contribute funding to community and professional education seminars, and to fund novel research projects.
Donations to the Center can be made online with a credit card. Make a Contribution
Donations can be made by writing a check or writing down your credit card information and mailing it to us. You can print this form, fill it in, and include it in the envelope with your donation. Mail Your Donation
To set up a memorial fund, a specific fundraising event or an online memorial donation “button” simply contact our Center by phone or email and we will help you organize it in a way that works for you. We can provide you with brochures about our Center and donation instructions and mailing materials. After each event, all the donors will be sent thank you notes for their donations. In addition, the organizing family will be sent a thank you note and a list of all the donors who sent contributions.
Gina Weitzel
Sr. Associate Vice President for Health Sciences Advancement
Keck Medicine of USC
1150 South Olive Street, 25th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90015
Memorials
Memoriam of Mary Ann Darby
The Carol Percy ’56 Alzheimer’s Support Fund
Barbara R. Brink Fund
Norma Jeanne Peterson Fund
Mary Ann Darby
(April 7, 1924 - December 1, 2014)
Mary Ann Darby was the beloved daughter of Dr. Glen D. Cayler athlete, coach, and physician affiliated with Los Angeles County Hospital for fifty years and his lovely wife, Esther Haddock Cayler. Blessed with her mother’s looks and her father’s talent, Mary Ann was beautiful, vivacious, and charming, the girl every boy wanted to dance with. She brought a glow to any gathering, a sparkle to any party. In March 1947, on a date with another man, she met Richard M. Darby, who asked her out for the following night, present escort be damned. They married only six months later, and not long thereafter Mary Ann took her first job as a gym and modern dance teacher at Rosemead High School. She raised four children, three girls and one boy, supporting them in every activity, from Bluebird, Camp Fire, and Cub Scout troupes to swim team and dance, sewing, and art classes. As a member of the Pasadena Lawyers Wives, she was instrumental in establishing the Pasadena Court House Tours, to help educate youth about the judicial system, and she provoked a passion for dance and sports in many of her students at Pasadena High School. She was a beloved grandmother, her grandchildren crying in delight and running to greet her whenever she visited, and a helpful one as well, pitching in with the cooking or dishes or ironing.
It broke her children’s hearts to lose her piece by piece, to see her faculties vanish one by one. Yet as her abilities diminished, she still tried to be useful, helping with the housework in small ways. And she never lost her sweet disposition. She always loved the people who cared for her and, while she could still talk, called them her “little girls” or "little boys." "Little", her favorite term of endearment as Alzheimer's progressed. For her, we were all her little children, and she loved her children unconditionally.
The USC Memory and Aging Center is a preeminent resource for patients, caregivers, volunteers, and research on memory and aging. The Carol Percy Fund's goal is to build on the Center's current work by continuing to offer comprehensive care plans and access to leading-edge clinical trials, while advancing the understanding of Alzheimer's Disease.Carol's dedication to her alma mater and her belief in education are the foundation for the Fund. Along with outreach and activities for those diagnosed with Alzheimer's, information for their families and respite for caregivers are realized with your donations to the Carol Percy '56 Alzheimer's Support Fund.
Barbara R. Brink was best known for her love for people. She was kind, compassionate, an encourager and funny. To know her was to love her. She was never too busy to lend an ear or pray with you, whether you were someone she knew or someone she had just met. She loved the Lord and her family more than anything. She dedicated her life to serving both. It was her greatest passion in life for others to come to know that same joy in serving Christ her Savior.
20 year-old Jeanne Malott took a train from her hometown in Michigan to Los Angeles, California. She loved the palm trees, the sunshine--the shiny promise of life in California. Before long, she met and married the handsome systems engineer Milt Peterson and became the mother of four children.
When the kids were older, she used her exceptional secretarial skills and the experience of managing a large family to land a job as the scheduling secretary for Congressman Glenn Anderson. She and Milt eventually retired out to Victorville where, at the age of 59, she registered for her first college course. It didn’t faze her to sit in a room full of 19-year-olds, and she went on to receive her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude; eventually she received a Master’s Degree in English Composition. She taught college English for six years, before the early signs of Alzheimer's really began to affect her.
Our mother remained beautiful and graceful to the end, but this insidious disease took her from us little by little. It became difficult to look at the woman we were caring for and remember the woman she was.The dream of a cure begins to feel more like a responsibility to help the thousands of others whose lives will disappear in slow motion as Jeanne’s did.
