February 18, 2005 — Washington University School of Medicine will get a $5.5 million bequest Friday from the estate of Hilda Niess of Trenton, Ill., in Clinton County.

U.S. Bank Private Client Group said the trust names five medical specialties as beneficiaries: the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center will get $1 million; the Division of Rheumatology will get $250,000; the Department of Radiology/Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology will get nearly $1.5 million; the Siteman Cancer Center will get nearly $1.3 million; and the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders will get nearly $1.5 million.

Mrs. Niess, who died in 2003 at age 99, was from a family that included 14 physicians. Her father-in-law graduated from the university's medical school in 1912. Her late husband, Leonard, was an alumnus of Washington U. and wanted to attend the medical school but was unable to because of the Depression.

The bank said Mrs. Niess wanted to make the gift to the medical school after her own experience with cancer and because of an increasing number of friends and family diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Republished with permission from the St. Louis Business Journal.