Postcript to Growing Up Laughing"

I had not quite finished reading Marlo Thomas' biography "Growing Up Laughing" when I wrote my previous post. Now that I have finished the last few chapters I wanted to write about her father's philanthropic project -- "St. Jude Children's Research Hospital." This hospital grew out of Danny's promise to St. Jude at a time when he needed help with his career. He had grown up in an impoverished, immigrant neighborhood where his Lebanese mother gave birth to all ten of her children without a doctor assisting and where children died of flu and rat bites because there was a lack of health care.

Why did Danny choose to build this hospital in Memphis? He had once read a news story about an 8 year old black child in the South who was struck by a car while riding his bicycle and he died after no emergency room in the area would treat him. Marlo says her father carried that newspaper clipping in his wallet for years. After Marlo became known for her role as "That Girl," her father occasionally asked her to stand in for him at fundraisers. When she married Phil Donahue,he acquired another family fundraiser. Although Danny told his children that he didn't expect them to carry on his legacy, they have continued to be involved with supporting the hospital since his death.

The book above is one of several available about St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

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