Many a wife is a compliment, no complement to her husband. Mrs. Mabel Brady Garvan is both to her Francis Patrick Garvan. She, daughter of the late very wealthy Anthony N. Brady, sister of Nicholas Frederic Brady (Anaconda Copper, gas & electric utilities, Chrysler Motors), chose him when he was a vigorous, powerful assistant district attorney in New York City.* He was her brother-in-law, brother of Nicholas F. Brady's wife Genevieve Garvan Brady. And ever since she has worked, sometimes behind him, usually beside him, never before him, always with him—through his private management of their joined wealth, his custodianship of alien property his presidency of the Chemical Foundation (which as alien property custodian he created), his philanthropies. When Francis P. Garvan signs a check, document or letter with his swift script, which reads to the uninitiate Francis P. Gaway, his signature stands for himself & wife.
So when the American Institute of Chemists last week pondered upon which one of the Garvans to give their medal 'for noteworthy and outstanding service to the science of chemistry and the profession of Chemist in America," there was no intelligent solution except to give it to them jointly.
Their service consists of setting the Chemical Foundation going just 10 years ago, of buying for $271,850 the almost priceless German chemical patents (explosives, dyestuffs, drugs) which the Government had confiscated as a War retaliation, of licensing U. S. producing chemists to use those patents on a royalty basis. The Chemical Foundation has changed the U. S. Chemical industry from a whining, rickety infant to a closemouthed, lustry brute, equal to Germany's and England's. For ten years the brute has paid the Foundation its millions of royalties, and for ten years the Foundation has given those millions away—to scientific institutions and universities, for publishing magazines and books,* for student prizes. But Foundation intents and promises have often overspanned those millions. Then the Garvans have added their own money.
Their interest in chemistry, particularly in medical chemistry, is more personal than philanthropical. Just before the War ended, the Garvan's baby Patricia, a lovely child, developed rheumatic fever following influenza. Some of the best of the country's physicians, drawn into consultation, confessed themselves utterly powerless to save her. She died. Doctors know not yet how to cure rheumatic fever not even its cause. In search of cause & cure of that disease and of a score of others the Garvans are quietly giving their money. A footnote to their unobtrusiveness is the fact that Mr. Garvan, in his Who's Who autobiography, mentions neither their benefactions nor connection with the Chemical Foundation. '
*His most famed case: prosecution of Bon Vivant Harry K. Thaw for murdering Bon Vivant Architect Stanford White, 1906.
*Latest, Chemistry in Medicine ($2), exposition of what is being done in vitamins, diets, glands, public hygiene, anesthetics, germicides, specific diseases, clearly and freely written by foremost U. S. authorities.