Frances Perkins “Fanny” Reed died in 1944.
This year, she will help hundreds of patients on the Rehab and Transitional Care Units.
Fanny was born in 1858 in Manchester, Vermont. After graduating from Smith College, she moved to Oil City in 1884 to teach Latin and Greek at Oil City High School. Two years later, she married George Reed who became President of the Oil City National Bank. George passed away in 1930.
Fanny was an active member of many local clubs, including the Belles Lettres Club and Oil City YWCA. She was known for being very active in the community and served on the Oil City School Board and the YWCA Board of Directors. In 1939, she donated her house on Central Avenue to the Oil City YWCA to use as its headquarters, and they remain located there to this day.
In her will, Fanny created a permanent endowment fund for the Oil City Hospital, now UPMC Northwest, to maintain a deep diathermy room. As treatments have changed considerably since Fanny’s death in 1944, her fund today provides benefits to patients on the Rehab and Transitional Care Units.
Fanny’s fund recently upgraded the software for the modified barium swallow study which evaluates patients’ throats for difficulty swallowing. The new software allows results to be stored, examined, and sent to patients electronically, benefitting over 200 patients per year. Her fund also purchased a car transfer simulator that allows patients to learn and practice car transfer skills in the comfort and safety of an indoor setting. Every patient on the Rehab Unit uses this simulator to help them get back to daily living.
Just like Fanny Reed, you can leave your legacy by making a planned gift to the Northwest Hospital Foundation. Making a bequest in your will costs you nothing today and makes all the difference tomorrow.
For more information about making a planned gift, please contact Executive Director Theresa Edder at edderta2@upmc.edu or 814.676.7145.
