A Legacy of generous

Her journey in healthcare became a mission to change perceptions on death and dying. Rose Crumb, along with providing free hospice care services, helped thousands of patients and their families grappling with this difficult certainty. Rose, born in Minnesota in 1925, grew up on adjacent farms with her husband T.L. “Red” Crumb. She and Red moved to Port Angeles, Washington, in 1948 where they lovingly raised ten children. Shortly before marrying Red, Rose became a registered nurse.

In her 30s, Rose returned home to Minnesota to care for her dying father. She wanted him to die peacefully in his home, surrounded by loved ones rather than in a hospital. After her father’s passing, Rose founded Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County in 1978, a nonprofit organization based in Port Angeles, Washington, and served as its volunteer Executive Director for 35 years. The organization provides free physical, emotional, and spiritual support to terminally ill patients and their families. She was widely recognized for her pioneering work in hospice care and for establishing the only known hospice in the country that does not charge patients or the government for its services. The hospice is entirely supported by financial donations from the community. She was a recipient of several national awards for her volunteer public service, including The Jefferson Award and The Lane W. Adams Award, which is the highest honor bestowed by The American Cancer Society for work in cancer care. Rose also received the Jackie Kennedy-Onassis Award from the American Institute for Public Service. The Kennedy-Onassis Award was conceived and founded by Jackie Kennedy-Onassis and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy with the vision that it would be “America’s version of a Nobel Prize for public service”.

Rose’s generous heart supported the Olympic Peninsula community until her passing on December 19, 2018. Pat Neal, writer for the Peninsula Daily News, said her death “left a hole in the soul of the Olympic Peninsula that will never be filled,”.

It was the very organization she founded that assisted her in her final days, according to Paul Gottlieb of the Peninsula Daily News. “Of course, it was fitting, given the history of the organization,” her son Patrick Crumb told Gottlieb.

Patrick graduated Summa Cum Laude from Saint Martin’s University in 1985 and, following graduation from UW Law School, spent time as a practicing attorney before becoming a successful sports media executive. He has held several senior executive positions at four different Fortune 100 companies, including News Corporation/Fox, Liberty Media, DIRECTV and AT&T and now works as President of Regional Sports Networks at Warner Bros. Discovery. Both The Sports Business JournalandBroadcasting&CableMagazine named Patrick as one of the most influential executives in sports television. He was also named a Saint Martin’s University Distinguished Alumnus in 2019 and is a former member of the Saint Martin’s Board of Trustees.

His relationship with Saint Martin’s began at his childhood parish in Port Angeles, Queen of Angeles, as Saint Martin’s Abbey provided priests and pastors for the congregation. Not only did Patrick get to know many monks and Abbey members throughout his childhood, but Father Kilian Malvey, O.S.B., also a Port Angeles native, was the priest who presided over Patrick’s marriage ceremony to his wife, Karen, in 1998.

Patrick remains an active member in both the Saint Martin’s community, as well as multiple charitable organizations. But after his mother’s passing, he and his siblings wanted to do something to honor her incredible legacy. Not only was Rose a gifted nurse and devout Catholic; she was also deeply beloved by the community she and her organization served.

It was this incredibly generous spirit of service that inspired the Crumb family to establish the Rose Crumb Nursing Scholarship Endowment at Saint Martin’s University in honor of their mother’s career and passion in life. Patrick himself knows how much of an impact that scholarships have on a student’s ability to pursue their education; he and his siblings knew their mother would want her legacy to support future nurses in their studies. With this intention, on behalf of the entire Crumb family, Patrick and Karen Crumb raised their paddle for a record-breaking pledge of $150,000 at the Saint Martin’s Gala, the University’s annual major fundraising scholarship event, to start this endowment and to inspire other donors to also give for student scholarships. Rose Crumb also was known and beloved by the monks of Saint Martin’s Abbey due to the longstanding connection between the Abbey and her parish in Port Angeles. The Abbey generously agreed to fully match the Crumb family’s donation, bringing the initial scholarship endowment total to $300,000.

The scholarship endowment provides tuition support to students demonstrating financial need in the Saint Martin’s nursing program. With Rose’s impact in the Olympic Peninsula community, the scholarship preference is to first provide scholarship support to nursing students from Clallam County or transfer nursing students from Peninsula College in Port Angeles. If there is no student meeting that criteria, it may then go any nursing student with financial need.

For Patrick, another part of establishing this scholarship fund is his ability to pay it forward to the next generation of students. “I am grateful for what I received from Saint Martin’s,” he said, “and for the kindness and generosity of strangers I had never met whose donations allowed me to attend college on scholarships.”

While it was Rose’s children who came together to create this endowment fund, Patrick credits her with its existence: “[She] is the inspiration for the endowment... this scholarship endowment honors the life and legacy of our mother, who was a shining example of the interaction of faith, reason and service. She really was a remarkable woman.”