City of Hope lost one of its longtime leaders and supporters with the death of Percy Solotoy on July 15 at age 97. Solotoy was a former president of the institution’s board of directors.
Born Aug. 30, 1910, in Winnipeg, Canada, Solotoy moved with his family to Los Angeles in his early teens. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and earned a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He practiced law until he had to assume control of his family’s business, Brown Saltman Furniture, during the Great Depression.
 Percy Solotoy (City of Hope Archives) |
Brown Saltman was one of America’s first and most-respected manufacturers of modern furniture, and Solotoy received several awards for furniture design. He was highly active in professional associations and philanthropic groups.
Solotoy became a member of the City of Hope Merchants Club in 1939 and started a furniture industry philanthropic group in the 1940s. He then served on City of Hope’s board of directors for nearly four decades, from 1959 to 1997 — years of extraordinary growth.
By chairing City of Hope’s Research Review Committee and Biomedical Studies Committee, he enhanced the institution’s reputation in research and education. And as board president from 1971 to 1975, he presided over the start of the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program, one of the first and most successful such programs in the nation, as well as creation of City of Hope’s cancer center.
After retirement, Solotoy began volunteering at City of Hope. He became the first male visitor to patients on the wards.
“It’s a tough job. You’re walking in on very sick people, and they pour themselves out,” he said, during an oral history interview. “They feel comfortable in saying things to a stranger that perhaps they wouldn’t to somebody who was closer to them ... Running all through the conversations in almost every case was the theme of how grateful they were to be at City of Hope … They wanted to express this, to say how grateful they were for the attention they received, first medical attention, and secondly about how people cared about them, and their families, because their families also came. Our doctors and nurses and technicians always had time to talk to their families.
“I learned more about City of Hope in those two years than I learned in all the time before.”
Solotoy is survived by his wife, Inge Fitch, his stepson Alex Fitch, and his granddaughters Courtney and Sidney, as well as a great niece and two great nephews.