Children’s Museum and Indianapolis Zoo
Share Legacy That Will Benefit Children
Lloyd Lyons, Children's Museum Board Chair (left) accepts a check for the $1.4 million gift from the Dr. Frances T. Brown Estate presented by long time friends Paul and June Vos as Dr. Jeff Patchen, Children's Museum president & CEO and Brian Williams, vice president of Development at Children's Museum look on. |
INDIANAPOLIS ---- The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Zoo are pleased to announce their receipt of matching gifts in the amount of $1.4 million each from the estate of the late Dr. Francis T. Brown. In separate events, trustee director Paul Vos presented the checks to Dr. Jeffrey H. Patchen, president and CEO of The Children’s Museum, and Michael I. Crowther, president and CEO of the Indianapolis Zoo. Dr. Brown was a truly remarkable individual who supported both the Museum and the Zoo for many years, and now her legacy will be used to further the mission of both organizations to educate young minds and guide today’s youth in positive directions.
The Brown gift to The Children’s Museum will go to an endowment that will support changing cultures in the Museum’s upcoming new Global Perspectives exhibit. The over 400,000 square foot museum is a place where children and their families come together to enjoy extraordinary experiences that nurture interaction to foster family learning. At the Indianapolis Zoo, the $1.4 million will be placed in the Roy Shea Fund, a fund used by the Zoo in the event of exigent capital need. Those funds support the facilities and programs of the Zoo, where over one million visitors each year – primarily families and children – are inspired to celebrate, protect, and preserve the natural world through conservation, education and research, and where families enjoy an enriching and wondrous environment for visitors and animals alike.
Michael Crowther, Zoo president & CEO, (left) thanks Paul Vos and his wife June for the $1.4 million gift from the Dr. Frances T. Brown estate. Vos was the trustee for the estate of the late pioneering physician. |
When Dr. Francis Brown died in 1991, she directed her estate to set up a trust that generated a steady annual income benefiting The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Zoo. However, the last beneficiaries of Dr. Brown’s estate are now gone, and this summer, the full charitable remainder trust was presented to both institutions. The nearly three million dollar total most certainly would have pleased Francis Brown, who’s active and complex life belied her humble commitment to the causes she espoused.
Francis Brown was 94 when she died and was properly eulogized as one of the pioneer female
physicians of Indiana. A Martinsville native, Brown joined the Army medical corps during World War I, serving as a physical therapist stateside. After the war, she received her bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and her M.D. from the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1931, where she was one of only eight women in her class.
Her career spanned 54 years, all of them spent in her office at 21st and Talbott Streets in Indianapolis. In the throes of the Great Depression, she traded her services for groceries from the garden, but she later grew to prominence by founding the Premature Clinic at what is now Wishard Memorial Hospital in the 1930s, establishing a breast milk feeding bank when such a thing was unheard of, and designing and constructing one of the state’s first newborn incubators. During her long career, Francis Brown delivered at least 5,000 babies, the last one when she was 90.
Later, she worked for the Indianapolis Board of Health, giving physical exams to low income youngsters, and for the Indianapolis Free Kindergarten Society, examining and immunizing children. Francis Brown used her spare time to travel the world, from Mount Everest to both of the Poles and many of the points in between. She was committed to a lifetime of learning experiences, and her financial support of the Museum and the Zoo during her life reflected her varied interests and her support for the education of children. Among the projects she funded were an animal holding area in the Natural Science Hall at the Children’s Museum and the transport of a genetically valuable Amur (Siberian) tiger from Russia to the Indianapolis Zoo.
"We are thoroughly pleased to be a recipient of Dr. Brown's generosity. Her tremendous history of providing significant support for The Children's Museum of Indianapolis began in 1982 and was both financial and vocal. Her commitment to children and families throughout the years will stand as a wonderful legacy," said Dr. Jeffrey H. Patchen, president and CEO of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
Echoing Patchen’s sentiments, Michael Crowther, president and CEO of the Indianapolis Zoo, said, “Dr. Brown made a substantial contribution to the health of Indianapolis families during her lifetime, and her legacy will strengthen two institutions that are committed to sustaining families and our community today and in the future. We are extraordinarily grateful both to Dr. Brown and the trustees of her estate.”
Planned Giving is a significant contributing factor for non-profit institutions such as The Children’s Museum and the Indianapolis Zoo. Both institutions have more information on gifts such as Dr. Brown’s on their web sites, childrensmuseum.org and indianapoliszoo.com. Persons may also contact: Brian Williams, Vice President of Development, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, at (317) 334-3724 or BrianW@childrensmuseum.org, or Ed Sandifer, Planned Giving Manager, Indianapolis Zoo, (317) 630-2709 or esandifer@indianapoliszoo.com.
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