Celebrating Dolores K. Neustadt and
the Neustadt Family Legacy

Dolores Neustadt and her daughters Nancy Barcelo, Susan Neustadt Schwartz and Kathy Neustadt.

Walter and Dolores Neustadt

The Neustadt family could be described as active, visionary leaders. When Dolores K. “Dottie” Neustadt, widow of the late Walter Neustadt Jr., died in May, three generations had promoted transformative giving and service to the University of Oklahoma—a legacy being carried on by daughters Nancy Barcelo, Susan Schwartz and Kathy Neustadt.

The Neustadt family’s support of the university through gifts to the OU Foundation began with Walter Sr. and Doris, who donated the land for Max Westheimer Airport, home to OU’s School of Aviation. Doris endowed the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and was the first major donor to support OU’s Bizzell Memorial Library and the addition of a wing that carries her name. The family also established the Neustadt Professorship in Comparative Literature.

The apple did not fall far from the tree when the second generation took over.

Walter Jr.—who earned his 1941 OU Master of Science in Earth and Energy—and Dottie acted as a team, according to Robert Con Davis-Undiano, executive director of World Literature Today. The couple met and married in Kansas City in 1950 and raised their family in Ardmore, Okla. “They prospered with Neustadt Land and Development Co. and embarked upon a journey of philanthropy to support OU in epic ways.”

The Neustadts supported OU as a way to give back to their school and state, he said. Walter Jr. became active on several OU advisory boards, and Dottie helped form OU’s Seed Sower Society, which honors donors of $1 million or more.

Walter Jr. and siblings Jean, Allan and Joan made an additional $2 million gift in 1982 to the Bizzell Memorial Library. When Walter Jr. died in 2010, he left part of his estate to support the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, as well as the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature named for Nancy, Susan and Kathy to recognize writers and illustrators of contemporary children’s literature.

“I have never known people who were as deeply committed to supporting students getting the most from their education,” Davis-Undiano said. “They never tired of looking for new strategies to support students. Their dedication to giving back to the institution they loved was powerfully infectious.

“Dottie was a grand lady and a reminder of the good that can exist in the world,” he added. “Dottie’s rabbi told a story about approaching her with a cooking question. Her spiritual adviser’s inability to make rice effectively was ruining recipes, and she sought Dottie’s advice. Dottie thought for a moment and replied, ‘Just make noodles.’ She had a way of seeing through and around problems, and her friends and family valued her practical insight.”

Fast Facts About the Neustadt Prizes

• Since 1969, the Neustadt Prize Program has awarded nearly $1.5 million to renowned authors around the globe.

• The Neustadt family has created generous endowments to support the Neustadt Prize Program in perpetuity.

• Thirty-two Nobel Prize winners in literature were first Neustadt Prize winners, finalists or jurors.

• The Neustadt Prizes are among some of the most prestigious literary awards in existence, second only to the Nobel Prize in Literature, according to the New York Times.