AFAICT, it appears the bestest way is to use xlsread then convert the resulting data to the dataset...for one of the sections of the subject data that looks like--
[V,ID]=xlsread('yr02-13.xls','Endowed','A3:T142');
endow=[cell2dataset(ID,'VarNames',{'Account','Fund'}) ...
dataset(V(:,1),'VarNames',{'ATS'}) ...
dataset(V(:,2),'VarNames',{'TitleV'}) ...
dataset(V(:,3),'VarNames',{'HistValue'}) ...
dataset(V(:,4),'VarNames',{'Corpus'}) ...
dataset(V(:,5:end),'VarNames',{'Value'})];
save endow endow*
Turns out that section is also factorizable for several categories with nothing but the sheet name and ranges changed...