Seeking a cure for Parkinson's and other movement disorders
Mary Louise ”Lou” Brown Jewell
For most of his life, Worley Brown was a savvy businessman with a booming voice familiar to those who knew the Rock-Tenn Corporation CEO. But in the years preceding his death in 1997, Brown lost his ability to think and speak as he struggled daily with Parkinson’s disease.
“To know the wonderful vibrant person he was and to see how the disease robbed him of that was devastating,” says his wife, Mary Louise “Lou” Brown Jewell.
When her late husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Jewell was relieved that he did not have a brain tumor. But her hopes faded as the disease progressed. He also suffered from Lewy body dementia, a more progressive form of Parkinson’s that affects memory and the ability to reason and carry out simple actions. It also causes hallucinations. In addition to Brown’s illness and death, Jewell endured the loss of her mother as a result of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS.
Jewell’s experiences led her to make a $2 million pledge to establish the A. Worley Brown Chair in Neurology and donate $500,000 to renovate the A. Worley Brown Family Parkinson’s Disease Clinical Research Unit at Wesley Woods. Both contributions are the lead gifts for an endowment to raise funds for research, service, and education in neurology for Parkinson’s and other movement disorders.
