A legacy of largesse
Written by Amy Raley
Boy meets girl, they court, marry and have a family. It’s a typical story that never feels typical to the two people involved.
Jack Griswold (ME ’43), known on campus as “Cactus Jack” for his southwestern Nevada roots, and Illinois native Jeanne Buckman Griswold (HHS ’42) began their typical but unique story at Purdue. They met at a hot dog roast on the first day of classes in 1939. Later that year they attended a dance together, and during the following two years they fell in love and got married. A daughter and son followed.
Gone too soon
More than two decades later, in 1972, a sudden, tragic loss would interrupt their storybook tale. Their 23-year-old daughter, Margaret Ann, “Margie,” died in a fall while mountain climbing with her husband near Libby, Montana, in Glacier National Park. Her death came six months after she graduated magna cum laude in nursing from the University of Utah.
Margie’s brother, Warner Griswold, remembers how much his sister loved nursing — getting hooked on preparing for the profession in high school. “She worked as a ski patrol member during winters and as a nurse’s aide in the summers,” he says.
Warner, now retired and living in Nevada where his parents also lived, remembers his sister’s unbridled enthusiasm and her biologically detailed hospital stories that she sometimes told at inopportune moments. “There were times at dinner we had to tell her, ‘enough!’” he recalls with a chuckle.
A heartfelt gift
“My parents saw Margie’s death as a good reason to support something Margie loved. It was easy for them to support nursing at Purdue.”
Warner Griswold
Many years after losing their daughter, the Griswolds wanted to honor her passion for nursing while also benefiting students at their alma mater, Purdue. They chose to establish the Margaret A. Griswold RN Scholarship. “My parents saw Margie’s death as a good reason to support something Margie loved,” Warner says. “It was easy for them to support nursing at Purdue.”
The scholarship already has benefited many promising nursing students from out of state who have qualified by earning at least a 3.0 GPA after two semesters at Purdue. The out-of-state designation was purposeful, Griswold says: “Both of my parents came from out of state when they went to Purdue. They felt that going out of state was necessary to experience life without the friends you already have — to make new relationships.
All in the family
In 2014, long after his parents established the Purdue nursing scholarship, Warner, a CPA who judiciously saved 25% of his income throughout his professional life, generously added his own commitment of support with a planned estate gift. Convinced that their family could do even more than that, he gave his own daughter, Margaret “Maggie” Griswold, encouragement to support the scholarship, and gifted her a trust and a “will kit” for a Christmas present.
The unusual gift covered attorney fees for the commissioning of her will, among other financial benefits. In early 2017, Maggie included her own estate gift to the Purdue scholarship in writing her will.
Also a Nevada resident, Maggie chose a nursing career just like her aunt did. “People have told me that I remind them of her,” she says, clarifying that unlike her aunt she goes by “Maggie,” not “Margie.”
Maggie and her father make a point of getting together to read the letters they get from scholarship recipients.
Gratitude abounding
Thankfulness pours out of the letters from students like Ludia Hong, who was able to do more to support her siblings’ educations because of her scholarship, and Meghan Hodapp, who expressed her gratitude along with her passion for caring for at-risk infants in a neonatal intensive care unit.
Mary Reske’s letter described how her scholarship enabled her volunteer work in Nicaragua at rural clinics and orphanages. “I would not even be able to dream of possibilities like this if it were not for donors like you,” Reske writes. “For that, I will be forever grateful.”
The letters mean a great deal, Maggie says. “I literally tear up and cry a little when we finish a letter. There are some where I can’t even speak to get through them. That’s why I give my money to Purdue. You have no idea when you give your money to something how big an impact it will have on someone.”
Maggie adds that her own experience as a nurse has made the effects of the scholarships in the lives of students all the more meaningful to her. “I have worked in cardiac care for years — and in cardiac ICU — where people recover from open-heart surgery every day,” she says. “To me, the fact that we’re helping more people be able to do that is really important.”
Warner, too, see shades of his sister and his daughter through his philanthropy.
“When somebody can’t stop talking about their career or future career, you realize that is something really unique,” Warner says. “When you see them find a career that they talk about at 100 miles a minute — that’s what nursing did for my sister. And that’s the way it is for my daughter.”

