University of Minnesota - Gopher Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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DR. EHARLES MAYEI My brother Will and I, Ur. Eharlie would drawl, his eyes laughing, his broad mouth guirking in a grin, as he spun a yarn for the men who always seemed to gather where he was. Public health and social and civic mailers were always his share of the clinic's work although the surgery of the nervous system was his major field. Eor years he was city health officer and Board of Education member in Rochester. He was president of the American Medical Association from 1919 to 1917. The younger of the brothers, he was born in 1R55 after his family had settled in Rochester. At E9 he received his MR. from Northwestern University and the next year entered the Mayo clinic. He and his wife, Edith Graham, were the parents of eight' children. It is his son, Eharles William, who alone carries on the Mayo tradition at Rochester today. Dentistry was one ofthe minor fields in which he took an active interest. it was through his efforts that the scope of the Mayo Eoundation was broadenedtoinclude dentalas wellas medicalfellows. He was a lecturing professor at the University until 1995 when he was made professor emeritus. Roth he and his hrother held honorary degrees at Minnesota. His death on May EE, 1999, broke the fraternal bonds which for EU years had been the guiding spirit of the Mayo clinic. l fi .. I. t iii ' 'fi 4 i .I . ' i My brother and 1- Rr. Will and Rr. Eharlie. As boys they shared a common ideal. As men they built, together, a center where that ideal took form and grew. With an understanding so full that it encompassed every thought and action of their professional lives, they stood before the world not as two great men, egual in accomplishment, but as hrothers united in achievement. They were not alike. They neither looked alike nor spoke alike. Although their purposes and hopes were shared, they did not think alike, Une was the perfect complement of the other, and the harmony of their union was only increased hy their difference. Ur. William Mayo was not a large man, but the austerity of his presence, the firm line of his chin, the serious depth of his eyes. made it impossible to think of him as small, Even when he smiled or pointed up his clearly ordered comments with a joke, he had an air of dignified reserve. Rr. Charlie liked to laugh. He would chuckle and tell stories and slap his friends heartily on the hack without shadow of restraint. He enjoyed people, Rr. Will respected them. Rot though he made his hearers laugh, his rambling speeches never lacked a point. With a shrewd philosophy behind his wit, he said exactly what he meant and exactly what Rr. Will would have said in a very different way. With their father, from whom they inherited the talent and character that made surgeons and scientists of them both, they founded the Rochester center. As the family clinic grew, money began to accumulate, as Ur. Will said, in spite of us. No one paid THE MAYR5 WITH PRESIDENT REIUSEVELT

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Q, ,wp ,, I 1 1 4 . ,HAIEIULD NEL5 EDITOR IN EHIEE IIIQIIIEEEI NEIHDE BUSINESS MANAGER

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4,-V . them more than he could afford. The fare home was often part of a poor man's cure. We never regarded the money as ours, they said. To return il to the sick from whom it came, they invested all but their own modest wages in research and study. Intolerant of artificial barriers in education, they created the Mayo foundation for Medical Education and Research for study at the clinic and the University of Minnesota. In 1915 the income from 51,599,999 was placed at the disposal of the University. The principal, increased to 552,999,999 was given outright to the Board of Regents in 1919. In 1994 an additional gift was made which hrings the present fund to 59,712,999 Thus, through the Mayo fellowships they removed financial barriers and through their influence they sought to limit the aca- demic prereguisites that delay practical work. For them the study of medicine had only one purpose, to relieve all the human suffering possible during our tives. For fifty years that was what they tried to do. Rot they were not content. They were determined that their work should not die with them. We shall never have the whole thing, they said. There will always be a new hallway full of doors to open. When the fellows ofthe Mayo Foundation open those doors, they will not pass through them alone. With them in spirit will be the brothers who saw the doors ahead,Ur. William and Ur. EharlesMayo. DR. AN9 MRS. WILLIAM MAY9 35-42 .,,L tl -, - ,K .fl- tt' . my :fi q ' 1 317. 'Q-.' ,K i' . 4tsi.: .V UR. WILLIAM MAY9 My hrother Charles and I, Ur. Will would begin as he expressed their opinions to the regents of the University who for thirty years had heard with respect the decisive words of their senior member. Appointed to the board in 1997 hy Governor John A. Johnson, he served continuously until his death. During his regency he worked with five of the six University presidents. His first interest in the University was the Medical School and Mayo Foundation but he was alert to every educational trend., More than any dirt farmer, he encouraged the scientific study of agricul- ture and biochemistry. In every branch of study he insisted upon three things - directness, democracy and research. Although he was horn in Le Sueur in1991and went to Minnesota preparatory schools, he studied medicine at the University of Michigan where he was elected to Phi Reta Kappa and Sigma Xi. He began to practice in 1999 and the next year he married Hattie Damon. They were the parents of two children, Carrie and Phoebe. In 1999 he joined his father and brother in the newly organized clinic at Rochester. His work in the field of abdominal surgery and as associate chief of staff of the Mayo clinic won him honorary degrees from universities both in America and Europe. .lust two mouths after his hrother's death, Ur. Will died on .Iuly 29,1999