Background
Andrus, Ethel Percy was born on September 21, 1884 in San Francisco, California, United States. Daughter of George Wallace Andrus and Lucretia Frances Duke.
Andrus, Ethel Percy was born on September 21, 1884 in San Francisco, California, United States. Daughter of George Wallace Andrus and Lucretia Frances Duke.
Bachelor of Philosophy, University Chicago, 1908. Master of Arts, University Southern California, 1928. Doctor of Philosophy, University Southern California, 1930.
In 1995 she was designated a Women"s History Month Honoree by the National Women"s History Project. She earned a bachelor of philosophy (Bachelor of Science or Scientiæ Baccalaureus) degree from the University of Chicago in 1903 and a bachelor of science degree from Lewis Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1918. She then went on to receive her master"s (1928) and doctoral (1930) degrees from the University of Southern California.
While teaching at the Lewis Institute, she volunteered at Jane Addam"s Hull House.
Andrus founded a separate organization, the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA) in 1947. She realized that retired teachers were living on very small pensions, often without any health insurance.
She approached more than 30 companies to offer health insurance to retired teachers, before she found someone willing to take a chance on NRTA members in 1956. The organization expanded its membership to all retirees and became American Association of Retired Persons in 1958.
In 1954 she moved to Ojai, California, to start Grey Gables of Ojai, an NRTA sponsored retirement community.
She ran both NRTA and American Association of Retired Persons from her offices in Ojai until 1964, when she moved the administrative branch of American Association of Retired Persons to Long Beach. lieutenant was while living in Ojai that she founded American Association of Retired Persons in 1958. Today, the NRTA is still a division of American Association of Retired Persons, and serves as its educator community.
The Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center is named after her at the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, the oldest and largest existing professional school of Gerontology.
She was inducted into the National Women"s Hall of Fame in 1993. She is buried at Ivy Lawn Memorial Park in Ventura, California.
Volunteer, Hull House, Chicago Commons, California Retired Teachers Association.