ST. JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL

FROM TEXT OF BOOK, "GROWING UP LAUGHING", MARLO THOMAS


My father began to build his dream of St. Jude by making a simple sketch of the hospital on a piece of cardboard that came from the cleaners with his shirt. Talk about low-tech.

His belief that he could accomplish this is astounding--that a poor kid from Toledo, with one year of high school, a nightclub comedian, would be able to build a world-renowned cancer researh hospital.

He named the hospital after St. Jude , patron saint of hopeless causes, to whom he'd prayed when his budding performing career had stalled. GIVE ME A SIGN TO HELP ME FIND MY WAY IN LIFE, AND SOMEDAY I'LL BUILD A SHRINE IN YOUR NAME. He soon found fame, and kept his promise. And he built the hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, because he once read a news item about an eight-year-old black child in the South who was riding his bicycle and was struck by a car. But no emergency room in the area would take him, and he died. My father carried that clipping in his wallet for years.