Mary Ann Test

REMEMBERING DR. MARY ANN TEST

Mary Ann was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey to Laurence and Celestine Test on November 16, 1942. Her other family member was brother Larry (usually called "Dick") two years older. Mary Ann enjoyed a very close family at their long-standing home in Haddonfield, enjoying Mother's daily cooking, Dad's garden vegetables during summer, and playing backyard sports and indoor games with brother on a daily basis. She graduated from Haddonfield Memorial High School in 1960 after earning high academic honors and letters in nearly all sports in which girls participated at that time.

She went on to graduate from Gettysburg College in 1964 and to graduate school in clinical psychology at Northwestern University, receiving her Ph.D. in 1969. She moved to Madison, Wisconsin to take a position at the Mendota Mental Health Institute (at the time known as Mendota State Hospital) as the Associate Director of the Schizophrenic Research Unit, and in 1970 became the co-Director of the Prevention of Institutionalization Program. At the time, no program existed to guide the reintegration of hospitalized persons with severe and persistent mental illness back into the community. Consequently, most persons discharged from the hospital to the community found themselves back in the hospital, known as “the revolving door” phenomenon. It was during these early years at Mendota that Dr. Test and her colleagues, Drs. Stein and Marx, developed the Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT), which provided a model for the successful treatment of persons with mental illness in the community. Over the past 50 years, the PACT model and its dissemination revolutionized the approach to delivering services to persons with serious mental illness by moving the locus of treatment from the hospital to the community. In 1978 Dr. Test joined the social work faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. See (https://socwork.wisc.edu/2025/02/07/professor-emerita-mary-ann-test-passes-away/) for more information about Dr. Test’s contributions to the research and training of a new generation of community-based mental health clinicians and researchers.

In addition to her outstanding academic work, Mary Ann will be remembered by her brother Larry, niece Tanya, and many dear friends and colleagues as a caring and generous human being by all who knew her in any capacity. She touched hearts and souls in ways that will be felt by many long after her passing. In addition to her family and friends, Mary also leaves her dear cat Asha who stayed by her side for 22 years.

Mary Ann’s family extends their heartfelt thanks to her dear long-term friends Bonnie Svarstad and Patty Warner for their continued devoted commitment to her well-being, which made it possible for Mary Ann to stay at home until the end of her life. We wish to thank her wonderful caregivers, Casey and Naffie, for their five years of devoted care, and her care manager, Susan Rutter for her eight years of committed service to Mary Ann.

Gifts in Mary Ann’s memory may be made to the National Association on Mental Illness (NAMI), an organization to which she dedicated much time and talent. (https://www.nami.org/get-involved/donate-to-nami/)

Family, friends, and colleagues will celebrate Mary Ann life on Wednesday, April 16, 2025 from 5:00-7:00 p.m.at the Waisman Center, 1500 Highland Avenue, Ziemann Suite, 8th Floor, South Tower. Free parking is available in Lot 82. There will be a program from 5:30-6:30 p.m. If you plan on attending, please RSVP to jan.greenberg@wisc.edu. Please let us know the number of guests who will accompany you.

Please share your memories of Mary Ann by posting in her Guestbook.

Cress Funeral Service

3610 Speedway Road, Madison

(608) 238-3434