University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
MD Anderson was created by an act of the Texas Legislature in 1941, making it a part of The University of Texas System and was established by the National Cancer Act of 1971. Today it is one of 49 Comprehensive Cancer Centers designated by the National Cancer Institute. The cancer center provided care for more than 137,000 patients in Fiscal Year 2017 and employs more than 20,000 people.
Thomas F. Anderson
Anderson was born in 1911 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to Anton Oliver Anderson, an electrical engineer, and Mabel Foxen, both the children of Norwegian immigrants. When he was a child, his brother, Norman, developed a chronic mastoiditis. After the death of his mother in 1920, Anton married a new wife, Edna Halvorsen, and began moving his family in 1923, in search of a better climate for the health of his sick son. They lived successively in four different locations: Tampa, Florida (1923-1924); Amherst, Wisconsin, (1924-1925); Rockford, Illinois (1925-1926); and Glendale, California, which is where they finally settled.