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Pharmacy School Benefits from Family Ties
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Walter and Agnes Vinson Anderson
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Agnes Vinson met Walter Anderson over a Bunsen burner at the School of Pharmacy. Their sparks produced two marriages, two future UCSF grads, and—more than 60 years later—one very generous gift to the School.
Inspired by stories of "John the chemist," a pharmacist-relative in Ireland, Agnes decided to attend UCSF. While dating Walter, a fellow student from the Class of 1947, she introduced her sister to Walter's twin brother. Harold had graduated from the School of Pharmacy in 1940. Harold and Mary married, followed by Walter and Agnes in 1947.
After graduating and turning down a pharmacy job for 50 cents an hour, Agnes went to work at Southern Pacific Hospital in San Francisco. Walter took a job in Berkeley.
One day in 1949, a traveling salesman asked Walter if he wanted to purchase a pharmacy at the Town & Country Village in Sacramento, the first shopping mall west of the Mississippi.
The two Anderson couples packed their bags and headed to the capital city. Harold and Walter ran the business, Anderson Brothers Pharmacy. Agnes and her sister, meanwhile, gave birth to daughters on the same day. "That was good for business," Agnes laughs. "Lots of publicity."
Walter and Harold, avid about customer service, worked many late nights and weekends. One customer, Agnes recalls, came into the store and announced, "When I make my first million, I'm going to give you a day off." He didn't realize that there were two of them, Agnes says. "It was a scream."
The brothers opened a second Sacramento pharmacy in 1960. Two of their children, also UCSF School of Pharmacy graduates, now run Anderson Brothers: Harold and Mary's son John, PharmD '82, and Walter and Agnes' son, Stephen, PharmD '89.
After Walter died in 2005, Agnes decided to donate $100,000 to establish the Walter C. and Agnes V. Anderson Endowed Scholarship Fund. "We received a great education, met each other, and introduced his brother to my sister," she says. "We owe much to UCSF."
"We feel fortunate to count this dynamic family among our alumni," says Dean Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD. "Their scholarship support will help deserving students to pursue the field we all love—hopefully with the same zest as the Andersons."
To support the UCSF School of Pharmacy, contact Marie Parfitt Pattie at 415/476-9806 or mppattie@support.ucsf.edu.
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