Father’s Love Turns Waymaker for Future Generations

It is a debt Dr. Perry B. McCallen will never be able to repay.

Expressing his gratitude for the guidance, determination and love demonstrated to him by his late father and sister, McCallen created a $950,000 engineering scholarship endowment in their memory at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

It is a legacy tribute through a charitable gift annuity for a place that was more than just a place—"UT was a dream and waymaker for dad," explains McCallen, "and still is for those to come."

Tarring roofs in the sweltering summer of West Tennessee was something McCallen's father, Perry S. McCallen, learned to do as a teenager.

"This grueling experience enhanced his determination to further his education," says McCallen, "as he would soon begin the journey toward his life's calling."

While sitting on a train car bound for UT, a magazine picture depicting a man surveying the top of a mountain caught his attention. The ad was the spark he needed to enroll in UT's civil engineering program.

With very little money scraped together by his mother and a number of part-time and odd jobs to fill in the gaps, the elder McCallen graduated circa 1913.

"He was the only one from his high school graduating class to attend college," McCallen says. "To think that he was reared on a dirt poor farm in Memphis and educated in a one-room schoolhouse..."

He eventually became president of Knoxville's Sanford Day Iron Works, once home to one of the largest manufacturers of deep mining equipment in the world.

"Previously coal cars had stopped as the cars were tilted in order to empty the content. Now an entire train of 30 mining cars could automatically unload on the move without ever stopping," McCallen describes while showing a picture of a 1937 automatic drop bottom train car. "All this was accomplished in one minute or less and then they were ready for reloading.

"He helped the company obtain multiple patents. He was truly something."

His "straight-laced ways and sermons about life" stuck with McCallen and his sister, Charlotte McCallen Zimmerman.

After Charlotte attended UT, she traveled near and far with her husband and relished raising four sons. McCallen followed in the footsteps of his grandfather to become a doctor. After attending UT Knoxville, McCallen graduated in 1960 with a medical degree from the UT Health Science Center.

"I could not have done any of it without my father," says McCallen. "He sent me to college, and then to medical school. His alma mater became mine—ours."

McCallen went on to pursue his otolaryngology residency in Memphis, where he met his bride, Jo Ann.

"He was an avid UT football fan," Jo Ann says with a grin, "so I knew we would not be moving anywhere else but Knoxville once he finished his residency."

"She was exactly right," McCallen laughs in agreement.

They settled into Knoxville and raised two children. He practiced medicine for 30-plus years, and rarely missed a UT football game. Now retired, McCallen spends much of his time bass fishing at his lake house.
"Our love for UT has fallen into the world of our granddaughters." Katherine Ann McCallen and Caroline Cassity followed the way of their grandfather and attended UT.

"Seeing a young person pursue his or her college dreams is still a gift," McCallen says, "a reminder of what I was able to do thanks to my father's work ethic and tenacity.

"So if we can be part of giving a hardworking, industrious student a chance, we want to be part of that story. I know it is what my father and sister would have wanted.

"Before Charlotte died of complications from emphysema in 2013, I asked her opinion of creating a scholarship endowment at UT. She could not have been more pleased.

"There is simply no better gift I can give in memory of my father and sister.

Absolutely none."