Endowment Gives Women Flowers for Life

Breast cancer survivors tend to form a strong sisterhood of support. Elizabeth “Beth” Glass survived breast cancer nearly 20 years ago. She understood the anxiety women sometimes face when having a mammogram—the best way to detect breast cancer when it’s most treatable. Beth decided to lift up these women. Thanks to her empathy and generosity, Beth ensured women who came for mammograms at Missouri Baptist Medical Center received a bright, ruffled carnation to recognize this important step in their self-care. This quiet, thoughtful gesture was important to Beth until the day she passed in November 2020.

Despite being diagnosed with dementia in early 2020, Beth made sure the check to the Missouri Baptist Healthcare Foundation for the carnations continued. As the disease progressed, her sons, Ron and Keenan, assumed responsibility for Beth’s finances and health care. Until then, they were unaware of their mother’s behind-the-scenes commitment to buying flowers for women receiving mammograms. “Even with the dementia that was stealing her memory, she would remind me about sending a gift to Missouri Baptist for flowers—it was still important to her,” Ron says. “Her love language was gifts. It was a way she expressed love to someone.” Ron and Keenan live in Texas. Their mother and father were both cremated, so there are no grave markers to visit, Ron explains. Yet, the brothers wanted to honor their mother’s memory in a meaningful way.

Ron and Keenan established the Elizabeth R. Glass Endowment for Breast Cancer Awareness. “This should fund flowers forever as a special way to honor and memorialize our mom,” Ron says. “We hope the flowers ease women’s concerns when they receive a mammogram and that this gesture brightens their day, knowing someone cared enough to give them flowers.”