With airport runs and ravioli dinners, a mom helped build a hospital — and a family legacy

When Lynn Gibson was a kid, she’d come home from school to find strangers in the living room of her Memphis home, a sick child tucked in on the couch. She’d glare at her mom and flounce to her bedroom.

“I was so ugly when she brought home kids,” Lynn recalled. She was 10 in 1958 when her mom, Katherine Zanone, joined the Ladies of St. Jude, a group of women who volunteered to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®.  

In those early days, Katherine helped raise money for the construction of St. Jude, organized events and did clerical work. When St. Jude opened in 1962, she picked up and dropped off families at the airport and sometimes housed them temporarily.

The services offered early on by the Ladies of St. Jude would become part of the very fabric of St. Jude, a precursor to the transportation, housing and meals St. Jude provides today. 

Back then, Lynn’s mom would take her aside and say, “Shape up!” “She told me to get over it,” Lynn said. But there was no getting over it. Lynn would throw herself on her bed and cry.

Her mom may have thought Lynn was being bratty, jealous of the attention she gave to the kids. That wasn’t it. In the early 1960s, childhood cancer was nearly always fatal. The overall survival rate was 20%; for the most common form, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, it was 4%.  

“By then, I was old enough to realize these things,” Lynn said. “I knew these kids weren’t going to make it.” The 3-year-old on the couch, his grandmother hovering nearby, died before he could start kindergarten. 

Lynn couldn’t bear the heartbreak. “How can bad things happen to good people?” she wondered. Lynn was the fourth of five children; her brother Dennis was six years younger. “This could be him,” she thought.

Maybe it was those unbearable odds that made her mom so determined to help.

‘Backbone of St. Jude’

Inspired by entertainer Danny Thomas’ vision to build St. Jude to treat children of all backgrounds for free, volunteers from then-neighboring St. Joseph Hospital founded the Ladies of St. Jude in 1956. Many original members were related to prominent Memphis figures including doctors, businessmen and even the mayor. 

When St. Jude opened, the women filled all volunteer positions, working day and night as clerical support on the switchboard, in patient areas, business offices — wherever they were needed. They paid for, staffed and maintained the first therapeutic playroom, helped patients with schoolwork and taught music and art.

Club dues covered stationery and stamps for donor thank-you notes. They also purchased a car for hospital use by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, who filled many administrative roles for the fledgling hospital until 1964, though St. Jude has always been a secular institution.

Katherine was hopeful when Dr. Donald Pinkel became the first Medical Director in 1961 with the audacious goal of curing ALL. At the time, chemotherapy drugs used to treat ALL were given one at a time, one after another — and despite every effort, patients inevitably relapsed and died.

Dr. Pinkel combined the drugs and administered them virtually simultaneously over a sustained period. By 1968, his TOTAL V study had achieved a once-unimaginable 50% long-term remission rate.

For Katherine, it meant the Ladies of St. Jude were helping make a difference. 

Sister M. Rita Schroeder, the first business director at St. Jude, paid tribute to the volunteers in the 1983 book, “A Dream Come True,” a history of St. Jude written by founder Danny Thomas: “We couldn’t have done it as well as we did without the Ladies of St. Jude. These were society women working as if they were being paid by the hour.”

“They were the backbone of St. Jude,” Lynn said. The women used a phone tree to rally members and a strict calendar to ensure a force of 10 to 20 volunteers were at St. Jude every day. For Lynn’s mom, it was Tuesdays.

Ravioli — and respite

The Zanones had one car, so on Tuesdays, Lynn’s dad, Jim, took the bus to work, leaving the station wagon for Katherine in her aqua-colored Ladies of St. Jude jacket and A-line skirt. Lynn remembers her mom answering calls at all hours. She’d run out to pick up a family at the airport or find another member who could. Some evenings, families joined them for dinner, biding time before a flight home. 

Katherine, a great cook, had met her Italian husband at a city parks dance. She was renowned for her three-meat gravy and ravioli, making 50 dozen from scratch over three days before Easter every year. Family and friends clamored to help — and get a share.

Katherine didn’t lament what was wrong — she did something about it. She was on the board of the St. Girard Home for unwed mothers and was active in the Ladies of Charity of Memphis. 

“She was pretty quiet about it all,” Lynn said.  Katherine just did the work. She increased her time at St. Jude to two days a week and was elected president of the Ladies of St. Jude in 1966, serving until 1968. Lynn remembers her mom’s portrait hanging in the lobby, past presidents lining the hallway. She had come to understand her mom’s commitment to St. Jude. “She really loved kids,” Lynn said. Every single one of them.

“There was nothing Katherine wouldn’t do for the kids of St. Jude,” said Lynn’s husband, Jerry Gibson, who met Lynn at Memphis State University (now University of Memphis). The first time Lynn invited Jerry to Easter dinner for ravioli, her older brothers grumbled, “You better love him.” Lynn and Jerry married on Aug. 8, 1970.

Katherine remained active with the Ladies of St. Jude until her death from a cancerous brain tumor at age 57 in 1971. Even then, her dedication to St. Jude didn’t end. Her family would see to that. 

‘She’d be thrilled’

Jerry built a career in healthcare sales and medical technology. Lynn taught elementary school for six years until their daughters arrived — first Brooke, then Taylor. They taught their girls what they’d learned from their parents. 

“We were both very fortunate to have parents like ours,” Lynn said. Jerry’s parents did charitable work through their church and his dad with the Shriners. “Kids learn more by example than anything,” Lynn said. “You can’t preach it — you have to show them.” She and the girls joined the National Charity League.

When Jerry began working in sales at Siemens Medical Solutions in 1978, he regularly called on doctors at St. Jude. By then, treatments developed there had helped push the U.S. childhood cancer five-year survival rate past 50% for the first time. “I always said to myself, if I ever had money, I would do something to help,” Jerry said. He and Lynn would get the chance.  

Over 40 years, Jerry built expertise in medical technology and start-up ventures, culminating as Chairman and CEO of Venclose, Inc. Selling the company in 2021 allowed him and Lynn to start their foundation, The Gibson Family Trust.

Their first gift was to St. Jude in 2022, supporting The Domino’s Village, a 140-apartment patient housing facility. Their contribution was honored with the naming of the waiting area of the in-house clinic. A sign at the door reads: “Dedicated in honor of Gerald and Agnes Gibson, Jim and Katherine Zanone, The Gibson Family Trust and Jerry and Lynn Z. Gibson.”

“We honor our parents and teach our children what they taught us,” Lynn said. Lessons now passed to their grandchildren: Chase, Cole, Sloane and Grace.

Now living in Arizona, the Gibsons attend St. Jude fundraising events, bringing tablesful of friends. Jerry serves on the Southwest Advisory Board of St. Jude. “We feel fortunate to be able to give,” he said. They’ve seen what is possible. 

St. Jude is a global leader in pediatric cancer research and treatment, helping to push the overall survival rate in the U.S. to more than 80%. Dr. Pinkel’s approach to combination therapy — fine-tuned over the years by different clinical researchers — helped bring the survival rate for ALL at St. Jude to 94%.  

As St. Jude grew, so did its ability to extend the compassion once offered by volunteers like Katherine. Airport pickups, meals and heartfelt hospitality evolved into a comprehensive support system provided at no cost to families. Today, most patients are treated on an outpatient basis, with families staying in dedicated housing. St. Jude provides shuttle and concierge services, easing daily burdens. All housing includes dining services, complemented by robust food offerings across campus.

The Ladies of St. Jude continue their work, now focused primarily on fundraising, volunteering at events and arranging activities for patient families as Katherine did decades ago. “I think she’d be thrilled,” Lynn said. Her niece — Katherine’s first grandchild — recently joined their ranks, the family’s devotion echoing through generations.