Obituary: Mary Dell Olin Pritzlaff, trustee emerita, 85

Mary Dell Olin Pritzlaff, a trustee emerita of Washington University in St. Louis, died Saturday, July 18, 2015, surrounded by family at her home in Santa Barbara, Calif. She was 85.

Mary Dell Olin Pritzlaff and Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton attend a Spencer T. Olin professorship installation in Holmes Lounge in 2012. 
Mary Dell Olin Pritzlaff and Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton attend a Spencer T. Olin professorship installation in Holmes Lounge in 2012. (Photo: Mary Butkus/Washington University)

She received the William Greenleaf Eliot Society’s Search Award in 2000, recognizing her exceptional service to the university. She served on the university’s Board of Trustees from 1980-2002 and had been a trustee emerita since July 2002. She was a member of the Educational Policy Committee and the National Council for the School of Medicine.

She was the daughter of Spencer T. Olin and Ann W. Olin, who, along with their foundation, were major supporters of the university and after whom several professorships are named. Pritzlaff served as a director of the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Foundation.

“Mary Dell was a great friend and a wonderful board member,” Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said. “Mary Dell will be deeply missed by all who came to know her.”

Pritzlaff was active in her community. Among other things, she served as president of the Phoenix Art Museum Board of Trustees and was involved with the Heard Museum and the Phoenix Symphony. In recognition of her many volunteer efforts, the Phoenix Ad Club named Pritzlaff the Phoenix Woman of the Year in 1979.

From 1969-1972, Pritzlaff and her husband, John C. Pritzlaff Jr., represented the United States in Malta, where he served as U.S. ambassador.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Sept. 26 at St. Barnabas on the Desert Episcopal Church in Paradise Valley, Ariz.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to St. Barnabas, the Reagan Ranch Center-Young America’s Foundation in Santa Barbara, Calif., or the charity of one’s choice.

Pritzlaff was preceded in death by her husband, who died in 2005. She is survived by her four children, Ann Symington of Phoenix; John Pritzlaff III of Castle Rock, Colo.; Barbara Pierce of Greenwood Village, Colo.; and Richard Pritzlaff of Louisville, Colo.; two sisters, Barbara Taylor, of Chicago, and Judy Higgins, of Greenwich, Conn.; 12 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.