Kathryn Dineen Wriston, right, with her beloved husband Walter B. Wriston, circa early 1990s. (Photo A)Kathy Wriston was an elegant and accomplished woman whose delightful sense of humor and natural openness drew others to her—and to the causes she passionately supported. She will be sorely missed.
Her death at age 75 on Sept. 28, 2014 due to complications from a fall at her home in Sherman, CT, came as a shock to all of us who were fortunate enough to know Kathy, and leaves us with a profound sense of loss.
A Trustee of the John A. Hartford Foundation for 23 years, Kathy was a tireless champion of our mission to improve the health of older adults and she inspired us all with her contagious enthusiasm for our programs. She could be very persuasive—Kathy was a hard person to say no to—but didn’t take herself too seriously. She was confident and capable, and I know our entire staff appreciated her intelligence and discernment. We are forever grateful for her guidance and support.
Kathryn Dineen Wriston was honored for her longtime support of the MSTAR program last month.Fortunately, we had the opportunity to honor Kathy just a few weeks ago for being a champion of our AFAR Medical Student Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) program, which attracts medical students to geriatrics careers through an internship experience. Kathy personally supported the MSTAR program and sponsored four students at Weill Cornell Medical School, whom she affectionately called her "sons." Each summer, Kathy took time to meet her adopted MSTAR scholars and kept up with their educational progress.
She also successfully encouraged many of her fellow Hartford Trustees to lend their support to the program as part of its long-term sustainability efforts. I am so pleased that we were able to convince the ever-modest Kathy to allow us to pay tribute to her at our Sept. 9th reception, where her MSTAR "sons," Hartford Trustees, and her friends could appreciate her typically charming, humorous, and down-to-earth nature.
One of the things that always impressed me about Kathy was the way she successfully integrated the traditional role of women with being a modern woman, and wound up being an exemplar of both. An accomplished attorney and veteran of several corporate boards, Kathy was savvy with her questions and suggestions and helped improve our programs by serving as the chair of the Foundation's Evaluation Committee from 1998 to 2012. She held several other leadership roles including President of the Board from 2002-14, Secretary from 1996 to 2006; Chair of the Audit Committee from 1993 to 2003; and Vice Chair of the Committee on Grants from 1992 until 2014.
Kathy attended project site visits frequently and interacted with staff on a regular basis (she was well known for her quick and responsive emails). She was great friends with Chairman Emeritus James D. Farley, whom she was known to affectionately call “Farles.” She was especially proud of our geriatrics programs at the University of Michigan, her law school alma mater, and she was an enthusiastic proponent of our programs in geriatric social work.
Kathryn Dineen Wriston, left, and Walter B. Wriston, circa early 2000s. (Photo B)Kathy dearly loved her late husband Walter B. Wriston, former CEO of Citibank, and their Connecticut home, Deer Pond Farm, where she took great pleasure in mowing their acreage and maintaining the property. Struck by the death of her husband in 2005 from pancreatic cancer, Kathy became a dedicated and passionate supporter of research into the prevention, treatment, and cure of the disease.
She was always interested in helping good work have as much impact as possible, and just this last month was fostering connections between pancreatic cancer research labs across the country. She also supported nature conservation, several educational institutions, and helped found an organization, the Matthew 25 Project, to help elderly residents in her community of Sherman, CT.
Working as we do in the field of aging and health, intellectually we know that death is part of life and that Kathy died doing things that she loved. Nonetheless, those left behind can only feel profound shock and loss at her passing. It is with sadness that we say goodbye to Kathy, but with joy that we also recognize her legacy, which will live on through the work she so faithfully supported at the John A. Hartford Foundation and elsewhere.
That legacy will also continue through the personal impact she had on me and my staff, and all who had the pleasure of knowing her.
Photos A and B courtesy of The Wriston Family Archive, Tufts University. Digital Collections and Archives. Medford, MA.