A Century of Caring

From left: Jimmy (BBA ’79), Madelaine, mother Jeanne “Scooter” Umstattd, Tom (BBA ’80) and Bobby (B.A. ’75). Madelaine’s son and daughter, Michael Madeley (B.S. ’10) and Katherine Gautreaux (BSN ’13), are members of the fourth generation of the Umstattd family to have graduated from UT. “I am already indoctrinating my three kids,” says Katherine, “so maybe they will be interested in continuing the tradition.”

Longhorn loyalty is known to last a lifetime. In the case of the Umstattd family, that loyalty has lasted several lifetimes. The Umstattds have a family history with The University of Texas at Austin that spans nearly a century and encompasses four generations. Keeping that connection strong for generations to come is what motivated four siblings — Jimmy, Madelaine, Tom and Bobby — to establish an endowment supporting Dell Medical School. The Robert Greenleaf Umstattd, MD Endowed Distinguished Professorship in Anesthesiology will honor their late father and continue the family’s impressive legacy.

The Umstattds’ Longhorn story began with the siblings’ grandfathers, both of whom were professors at UT. In 1924, maternal grandfather C. Aubrey Smith joined the accounting faculty of UT’s School of Business, which had been founded only two years earlier. He was a driving force behind the establishment of the MPA degree and the Department of Accounting Advisory Council. He also wrote two books about his time at UT: “Fifty Years of Education for Business at The University of Texas” (1962) and “Sixty Years of Accounting Education on the Forty Acres” (1972).

Grandfathers C. Aubrey Smith and James Umstattd were both UT professors.

Photos: Stanley Farrar, UT Texas Student Publications, Vertical Files, camh-dob-017301, The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin; The Alcalde, camh-dob-017302, The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin

Paternal grandfather James G. Umstattd, born in Missouri in 1896, spent his early career as an educator in Missouri, West Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan before coming to Austin in 1938. Texas must have felt like home; he spent 34 years at The University of Texas at Austin within the College of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, where he served as chair from 1939 to 1959. After retirement, he chronicled his life and career in a self-published autobiography, “The Odyssey of Jim Umstattd.”

James’ son, Robert G. “Bob” Umstattd (B.A. ’46), graduated from UT at age 19 and the following year married Jeanne “Scooter” Smith (1928-2021), who was enrolled in the School of Business. Scooter didn’t finish her degree at UT, but moved to Philadelphia with her new husband, who earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Following service in the Korean War, Bob moved his growing family to New Hampshire at the suggestion of a Navy buddy. Two winters in the rugged northeast were enough to convince him to return to the warmer climes of Texas. The family first landed in Dallas, but after two years there relocated to Austin, where Bob’s career as an anesthesiologist thrived from 1957 to 1987.

Scooter made her children aware that she wanted them to endow a professorship, just as had been done for her father, for whom the C. Aubrey Smith Professorship in Accounting was established in 1973 with gifts from 15 donors. “Since the passing of our father in 2000, Scooter talked about leaving some sort of philanthropic gift to a medical school, and very specifically to the field of anesthesiology,” says her son Bobby. “When Dell Medical School came to be, it fit our requirements exactly.”

Fulfilling their mother’s wish gave the close-knit siblings an opportunity to do some creative thinking. “We were trying to get the most bang for our buck as far as giving a good gift to Dell Medical School,” says Tom, whose brother Jimmy suggested gifting some commercial property that had been held by the family since the 1990s. The property will be sold by UT to fund the professorship. The Umstattd family’s generous gift will create opportunities for future Dell Med students and a chance for them to make an impact in health care.

“We are pleased our gift will help further the development of techniques and knowledge within our father’s profession,” says Bobby.