Marjorie Eloise Lund Crump, a UCLA alumna and loyal supporter of the sciences at the university, died of natural causes on April 1 in Trumbull, Conn. She was 89.
Crump’s family and friends remember her for her kindness and devotion to her family.
“When you met Marjorie, you were captured by her friendliness and you had to be prepared to be asked a lot of questions. She would start a dialogue and one question followed another,” said Michael Phelps, director of the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging. “You would see the warmth of her heart and the strength of her conviction.”
Crump grew up in Long Beach and attended UCLA, where she got her bachelor’s degree in 1946. After her graduation, she went on to become a social worker in Long Beach.
Marjorie and her husband and high school sweetheart Ralph Crump, another UCLA alumnus, were very fond of the UCLA campus and the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.
The Crumps both graduated from UCLA and married in 1948 in Westwood, after Ralph returned from serving in World War II.
In total, they gave UCLA $5 million and the engineering school a total of $6 million, said Vijay K. Dhir, the dean of the engineering school.
Dhir said he remembers how Marjorie Crump was not concerned with making a name for herself. Instead, she cared about the people she was helping through her work.
The Crumps also supported and provided funding for the establishment of the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging at UCLA.
Inspired by the Crumps, the institute promoted an emphasis on family, loyalty and integrity, said Phelps, who met the couple 15 years ago when he became the director of the institute 15 years ago.
Together, Marjorie Crump and her husband founded several companies including the manufacturing company Frigitronics Inc. They funded several other industries such as reverse osmosis, bar coding and 3D printing.
Marjorie Crump and her husband also endowed three chairs at UCLA including the Marjorie L. Crump Chair in Social Welfare, the William D. Van Vorst Chair in Chemical Engineering and the Crump Chair in Medical Engineering.
Besides her interest in business, Marjorie Crump was interested in the social sciences and in helping people deal with social inequalities, Phelps said.
“She was always involved in social work, it was her personal devotion besides her family,” he said.
Ellen Crump, Marjorie Crump’s daughter-in-law, said she thinks Crump was a trailblazer of her time and that she served a role model. Crump also took a particular interest in history and was regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Ralph and Marjorie Crump wrote books about the abolitionist movement.
“She was very ambitious and always a busy woman,” Ralph Crump said.
During his time in the war, the couple stayed in contact through letters. Whether it was the Persian gulf or South Africa, her letters would always arrive, he said.
In her personal time, Marjorie Crump raised flowers and tended to a garden, her husband said.
She also loved everything from art and sewing to hunting and fishing, Ellen Crump said.
“She was very lovely,” Ellen Crump said. “That was always a word we associated with her.”
Marjorie Crump is survived by her husband, their three children and their families. Crump’s family held a private memorial service on April 4.