Dr. Margaret Lancefield's Mother Inspired Her to Give Back
Dr. Margaret L. Lancefield was 11 years old when the seed was planted for her generosity—and her mother did the rest. Dr. Lancefield recently made a gift in her will to the Princeton Medical Center Foundation to support the outpatient clinic where she worked for more than 20 years.
“I began working in the fields alongside migrant workers,” she said of her childhood in rural Oregon. “I wondered why their lives were so different than mine. I felt so fortunate for all I had.”
Margaret came east to go to college—at Radcliffe and Harvard. She taught at the University of Pennsylvania before becoming director of the small clinic that eventually became the Bristol-Myers Squibb Community Health Center on the campus of the Princeton Medical Center. Margaret’s gift to the center is unrestricted, to be used wherever the need is greatest. She says it was her late mother who inspired her to add charities to her will.
“After my father died, my mother moved from Oregon to New Jersey so we could be closer,” Margaret said. “She had never talked about donations, so when she made a big donation to the hospital, I was surprised. And she said, ‘You should give to what you care about in the community.’ I’ve been fortunate, so I want to give back. And clinic patients are a good group to be involved with.”
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