Pearl Scott believed in supporting rural health care.
So much so that for the past 28 years she consistently gave $3,000 to rural health initatives and in recent years supported the University of Nebraska Medical Center Rural Health Education Network.
Upon her passing earlier this year, she earmarked another donation of $28,000.
What is even more amazing is that Scott was neither born in Nebraska nor did she attend the University of Nebraska.
Her only connection was through a set of grandparents who homesteaded in Minden, Neb., in the late 1800s.
It was during that time when a “would be” aunt died from ingesting the lye soap Scott’s grandmother had made. It was Scott’s belief that if there were a doctor nearby, her aunt would not have died.
When a former University of Nebraska Foundation assistant director visited Scott in 1988 at her home in Illinois, she told him that she appreciated what UNMC has done to bolster rural health and that is why she wanted to support those efforts.
Scott died earlier this year in a nursing home in Gardner, Ill. She was 103.