Jeanne Williams Newsom, former assistant dean of the David
Geffen School of Medicine, died May 27 after battling cancer for
several years. She was 83.
Newsom’s stepson, Ted Newsom, said she suffered a
“fairly damaging stroke” seven or eight years ago and
has been on and off chemotherapy for the past three to four
years.
Newsom was the second employee at the School of Medicine when it
opened in 1951. She was hired as the administrative assistant to
Stafford Warren, the first dean of the medical school.
“Jeanne Williams, who was a wonderful, bright, lovely
person, was extremely helpful to Dean Warren and the initial
faculty in getting the medical school organized,” said Dr.
Sherman Mellinkoff, another former dean of the medical school.
Since Newsom only had a high school education, Warren had to
fight for her to be hired. The UCLA personnel office did not feel
she had enough college education for the secretary/stenographer
position, her stepson said.
Born in 1921 and raised in Los Angeles, Newsom was the daughter
of an insurance salesman and a schoolteacher. She was married three
times, once just out of high school and later to Pittman Williams
until his death in 1965. In 1986, she married entrepreneur,
salesman and furniture designer Vernon Newsom, a man whom she had
known for 15 years. Sharing a love of golf, travel and cooking, the
couple lived in Malibu until 2003, when they moved to Thousand Oaks
because of Jeanne’s ailing health.
Newsom helped build and organize the School of Medicine and saw
the first class of medical students graduate from the school.
“Everybody loved her and respected her a lot. She enjoyed
watching the school grow and the campus grow for that
matter,” said Gloria Smith, a colleague of Newsom’s for
30 years.
After many years of dedication to the medical school, Newsom was
promoted to assistant dean, a position she held until she retired
in 1987.
As assistant dean, Newsom maintained the same duties she already
had as an assistant and secretary to the dean.
“I don’t know of anyone who was more beloved and
respected by everyone in the School of Medicine, including faculty
and students and staff,” Mellinkoff said.
While working in the School of Medicine, Newsom was also one of
the founding members of the Administrators and Supervisors
Association. She was the first to receive an administrative service
award that would later be named after her in honor of her 40 years
of service to the university.
In addition to her contributions to the medical school and large
donations to various charities including the Soroptimist Club,
Newsom was a big UCLA sports fan, said Sally Sylvester, a longtime
friend and colleague. Newsom went to all the football and
basketball games and had season tickets every year until last
year.
Two awards have been established in her name to honor her legacy
to the UCLA School of Medicine: the Jeanne J. Williams
Administrative Service Award, given to administrators for
outstanding achievement and service, and the Jeanne J. Williams
UCLA Medical Center Scholarship in Basic Science, a $10,000
fellowship awarded to deserving medical school graduate
students.
“She was a wonderful person. She enjoyed having a good
time and was very much a lady. She was very kind and always saw the
best in people,” Sylvester said.
Sylvester said she and Newsom were friends at the university,
and when Newsom moved down the street from her in Malibu, they used
to carpool to the university and grew even closer.
“She was such a good companion and friend,”
Sylvester said.
Newsom is survived by her husband, four stepchildren, two nieces
and her sister, Eleanor Hughes.