Legacy Bequests

Jeanette R. Duckworth of Lansing began giving to the W.K. Kellogg Eye Center Annual Fund in 2002. Ferdinand A. “Dutch” and Agnes M. Bower of Flint supported a fund in the name of a longtime ophthalmology department chair. And James B. Thompson and Mary Ann Brandt of Okemos, Michigan, made gifts to honor a faculty member who helped Ms. Brandt through her care for a rare systemic disease that impacted her vision — greatly improving her sight and her life.

Through estate gifts realized by Kellogg this year, these individuals chose to continue their legacies of giving—and will have an enduring impact on the activities and success of our work to advance eye disease care, research, and education.

Jeanette R. Duckworth (1923-2018)

A University of Michigan School of Nursing graduate, Mrs. Duckworth pursued a career in nursing administration throughout the state. After retiring from Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, she “lived a rich and rewarding life filled with cooking, needlework, Snoopy cartoons, family, and University of Michigan football,” according to her obituary, which ended with, “Go Blue!” Her husband, Ralph J. Duckworth, a quality control engineer in the automotive industry, passed away in 1998.

Through her estate plan, Mrs. Duckworth added to her long-term support of U-M, leaving two-thirds of the balance of her trust to the School of Nursing and one-third to the Kellogg Eye Center. The eye center has established an endowment to honor her wish to provide financial assistance to those studying to advance vision care and research for future generations. The Jeanette R. Duckworth Student Support Fund will forever assist individuals who are choosing to dedicate their lives to health care and helping others.

Ferdinand A. “Dutch” Bower (1883-1971)

Agnes M. Bower (1883-1975)

With more than a dozen automotive patents to his credit, Ferdinand A. “Dutch” Bower moved up the ranks at General Motors to become chief engineer at the Buick Motor Division. In the 1920s and 30s, he was credited with improving ride comfort and many other automotive advances, including an innovative lubricating and filtering system, brake mechanism, and oil pressure regulator.

Mr. Bower and his wife, Agnes M. Bower, were thoughtful and generous philanthropists. In the 1960s, they made arrangements to establish the F.A. & A. M. Bower Charitable Trust to ensure the causes they cared about would continue to receive funding after their deaths. They included the Father Flanagan’s Boys’ Home, the Flint Institute of Arts, the Flint Insti“ tute of Music, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing. In 1969, they added the Kellogg Eye Center to the list, supporting the F. Bruce Fralick Ophthalmology Fund. F. Bruce Fralick, M.D., was the fifth chair of U-M’s Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, serving in the role from 1938-1968. After Mrs. Bower died in 1975, the trust distributed gifts to the Fralick Fund annually until it was ended in January 2020, per the Bowers’ wishes. Kellogg received a percentage of the trust’s final assets at its dissolution.

James B. Thompson (1949-2019)

Mary Ann Brandt (1949-2017)

When Mary Ann Brandt was first introduced to former Kellogg faculty member Stephen J. Saxe, M.D., her vision was becoming foggy and she had already lost her hearing. Her symptoms were caused by an uncommon systemic disorder known as Wegener’s granulomatosis, an aggressive disease that causes inflammation of blood vessels, destroying tissue by limiting blood flow throughout the body.

The fine network of vessels in the eye is vulnerable to the condition, and Dr. Saxe guided Ms. Brandt’s care through five major eye surgeries and many other procedures. He also prescribed new drug therapies to quiet the vessels and prevent them from reforming. Ms. Brandt remained steadfast, supported by her husband, James B. Thompson. Her vision eventually returned to 20/40. Physicians from across U-M also helped Ms. Brandt overcome a long list of ailments arising from Wegener’s disease, including listlessness, memory loss, and difficulty speaking and walking.

To show their gratitude and help ensure that similar care and new breakthroughs would be available to others, the couple made a bequest to establish the Brandt Thompson Vision Research Fund in honor of Dr. Saxe. Created after Mr. Thompson died in 2019—Ms. Brandt passed away two years earlier—the fund will support autoimmune disease vision research or retinal disease research. It will be endowed for 20 years and then expended at the discretion of the Kellogg Eye Center director.

“Philanthropy makes a great difference in what Kellogg can achieve, and we are proud and grateful to be a part of the legacies of each of our supporters,” says Paul P. Lee, M.D., J.D., the F. Bruce Fralick Professor and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. “It is inspiring to see people make an investment in something they care about—and a privilege to do that work in their memory.”

A Plan for Estate Giving: Best Practice Includes Gift Letter

People make bequests because they believe in an institution and because it expresses their values, says Jane Langeland, Michigan Medicine’s director of planned giving. “The sense of purpose and personal satisfaction someone can feel by making a gift to benefit the community is very meaningful.”

While there are many ways to include the Kellogg Eye Center in your estate plans, ensuring that we know how the funds should be used once they are received can be important for achieving your goals.

A best practice is to use general bequest language in your will or revocable trust and then to create a separate, more detailed letter that outlines your wishes, says Ms. Langeland. That letter can be updated without having to go back and update your will or revocable trust, giving you the flexibility to make changes over time.

“We want to use these resources just as you intend and to their maximum benefit,” she says. “Your gift will be impacting the future of delivery of care.”

For more information on supporting the Kellogg Eye Center, please contact Lindsay Baden at 734-763-0875 or linmwell@umich.edu, or visit giving.medicine.umich.edu.