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 Roxana Cannon Arsht Leaves Her
Legacy to Delaware
There’s a photograph of the 800 block of Market
Street on display at the Baby Grand. The Hotel Wilmington is on the
west side of the street, the Grand on the east; and a few early
vintage automobiles are parked on both sides. It is 1915, the same
year the Honorable Roxana Cannon Arsht was born at 2nd and Adams
Street above her parents’ dry goods store. Roxana has been involved
in much of Wilmington’s history since that time.
As a girl Roxana rode the trolley and attended
public schools that had numbers rather than names. Her parents
worked hard to get ahead. Her father, a Russian immigrant, graduated
from the University of Delaware in 1918, then went on to earn a
Masters in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her mother
opened “The Corset Shop” at 9th and King Street, not far from where
Roxana would eventually sit on the bench in Family Court. Roxana
learned some important lessons from her parents, including: You have
to stand on your own two feet and The world doesn’t owe you a
living.
Perhaps that’s why she became “gutsy, independent
and not afraid to challenge the status quo,” words she recently used
to describe herself. Smartly dressed in a black sweater and leather
pants, and just back from her classes at the Academy of Lifelong
Learning, Roxana sat in the sunroom of her home on the first day of
Spring 2001. She reminisced about the place where “Sam and I both
grew up” and explained what led her to create, through a provision
in her will, the Arsht Cannon Fund at the DCF.
Community service has always been important to
Roxana. After her marriage to S. Samuel Arsht, she got involved in
the Red Feather Agency (predecessor to United Way), Welfare Council,
Visiting Nurse Association, Planned Parenthood and other causes
important to her and to the welfare of others. Roxana put her
energies into raising their daughters, Adrienne and Alison. Although
she had been the fifth woman admitted to the Delaware Bar (in 1941),
there were no jobs for the wife of a practicing attorney at that
time.
During those years Sam became a prominent Wilmington
attorney. He was a partner with the Wilmington law firm of Morris,
Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell, headed the Revised Code Commission that
codified state law in 1949, was counsel for the former State Highway
Commission from 1955-69, and chaired the committee to overhaul
General Corporation Law, which was approved by the General Assembly
in 1967.
Roxana’s interest in issues relating to families led
to a volunteer position as a “Master” in Family Court in 1962. She
started out by hearing cases two days a week, and soon was “on call”
Monday through Friday. In 1971 Governor Russell W. Peterson named
her to the Family Court Bench. She became the first woman judge in
Delaware and remained as the only woman judge until her retirement
in 1983.
Sam also retired about that time and the couple
began taking classes at the University of Delaware’s Academy of Life
Long Learning. When the Academy outgrew its Wilcastle facility in
Wilmington, Sam and Roxana came to the rescue with a gift that
provided for a spacious new facility. Dedicated in 1991, Arsht Hall
is now home to 2,000 Academy members and is a leading institution
for learning after retirement.
More recently, a gift from Sam Arsht, in Roxana’s
honor, contributed to the building of the Roxana Cannon Arsht
Surgicenter in Wilmington. Roxana was the first woman member of the
Board of Directors of the Medical Center of Delaware, now known as
Christiana Care, Inc., which opened the outpatient facility last
spring, a year after Sam’s death.
When Sam died in March 2000 from leukemia, Roxana
was confronted with dealing with his will and related legal and
financial issues. Lacking expertise in these matters, she turned to
some of her friends for help and was guided through the process of
finding management and accounting assistance. “It was an exhausting
year and a half,” Roxana recalled.
Roxana knew about the DCF because some of her
friends helped create the organization. In addition, the Women’s
Section of the Delaware Bar Association established a scholarship
fund in Roxana’s honor at the Foundation. When Roxana was trying to
work out the details of the legacy she wanted to leave to the
community, she realized the Community Foundation was the “logical
place to go.”
“Collis Townsend - DCF Executive Director at the
time was a mentor throughout the process and the professional staff
was very helpful,” Roxana said. “Their expertise made me feel secure
– I knew they represented what I believed in. The world can change,
but the DCF knows the community and has the judgment to keep
current, as well as flexible, to meet the changing needs.”
Working with the Foundation and her attorney, Thomas
R. Pulsifer, Roxana developed the purpose of the Arsht Cannon Fund.
It will carry out Sam and Roxana’s commitment to the Greater
Wilmington community forever: To preserve, support, protect and
defend the best interests of a civil society. Three advisors,
including her daughter Adrienne, will recommend disbursements from
this broad and flexible fund. (Alison Arsht died in 1973.)
Roxana also created the A.A. Fund as a “charitable
inheritance” that will be overseen by Adrienne, a prominent attorney
who has carried the Arsht tradition of community service to Florida,
where she now lives and is CEO of Total Bank. Her interests include
the arts, health and education. She advocates for the Latino
community and encourages women to venture into business.
Although she now has her affairs in order, Roxana
isn’t ready to end her involvement in the community. Her latest
contribution is the inspiration and capital she gave to launch the
Cancer Care Connection, an outgrowth of dealing with the care giving
system during Sam’s illness This new organization will connect
people with the care services and information they need.
In her ninth decade, Roxana is still “challenging
the status quo” in order to make life better for others in the
community. And because of her thoughtfulness and caring, Delawareans
will benefit for generations to come through the Arsht Cannon Fund.
The Delaware Community Foundation is proud to be entrusted to carry
out the legacy of the Honorable Roxana Cannon Arsht and the late S.
Samuel Arsht.
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