Ann Lurie Dead, a self-described hippie who became one of Chicago’s most famous philanthropists, in one instance giving more than $100 million to a hospital where she once worked as a pediatric nurse, died Monday. She was 79 years old.
Her death was announced in a statement by Northwestern University, to which trustee Mrs. Lurie donated more than $60 million. The statement did not say where she died or specify the cause.
An only child raised in Miami by a single mother, Ms. Lurie protested the Vietnam War while in college and planned to join the Peace Corps after she graduated. In the interview, she said that Robert H. Even after marrying Lurie, she was caught in the trap of wealth.
Former University of Michigan fraternity Sam Zell, whose portfolio includes The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and The Los Angeles Times, Mr. Lurie built a real estate and investment empire as a partner at Equity Group Investments. Chicago Cubs. Mr. Lurie held stakes in the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox.
He died of colon cancer in 1990 at the age of 48, with a fortune of $425 million. As of 2007, Ms. Lurie had donated $277 million, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
In recognition of the care Mr. Lurie received at Northwestern University’s Cancer Center, the couple Northwestern University’s Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center To expand its treatment and research capabilities.
After her husband’s death, Mrs. Lurie Ann & Robert H. Lurie was president and treasurer of the Foundation and founder and president of Lurie Investments, which helped support his philanthropic efforts.
Among her many projects at Northwestern, she established a professorship in breast cancer research and oncology at the Feinberg School of Medicine and the 12-story Robert H. helped fund the Lurie Medical Research Center.
Her $100 million gift to Chicago’s Ann and Robert H. Helped fund the construction of Lurie Children’s Hospital, which replaced Children’s Memorial Hospital, where Mrs. Lurie worked as a nurse in the early 1970s. The new hospital was opened in 2012.
She was also a major benefactor of the Greater Chicago Food Depository; Gilda’s Club Chicago, a cancer charity named after Gilda Radner, who died of cancer in 1989; and the University of Michigan. In 2004, Chicago honored Mr. Lurie by naming a four-block-long street West N. Lurie Place.
Known for her hands-on approach to philanthropy, Ms. Lurie also focused on Africa and Asia; For example, she founded Africa Infectious Disease Village Clinics in Kenya, which she supported for 12 years. Acting as its director, she often visited there.
“The dictionary definition of philanthropy is love and care for mankind,” she said in a 2004 interview with The Sun-Times. “People can be philanthropic even if they never hit their checkbook. It’s about the passion you feel for those who are living in disadvantaged circumstances.”
Mrs. Lurie was born on April 20, 1945. Her parents divorced when she was 4, and Ann, an only child, grew up in a house in Miami with her mother, Marion Blue, a nurse, as well as her grandmother and mother. aunt
Ms. Lurie enrolled in the nursing program at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She married an aspiring lawyer and graduated in 1966.
Her plan to join the Peace Corps came to fruition when her husband started law school; Although he was from a wealthy family, she later said, she insisted that they live on her salary as a nurse.
The couple later settled in Fort Lauderdale, where her husband opened a law practice and Mrs. Lurie worked as a nurse at a county hospital.
“Their priorities were very different,” she told The Sun-Times, adding that her husband tooled around in a Porsche his family gave him. The couple divorced in 1971, and, Ms. Lurie said, she “promised to myself that I would never get involved with any rich man.”
Lured by Chicago’s culture and diversity, she moved there “without knowing a soul,” she later said, and worked as a pediatric intensive care nurse at the hospital that would eventually bear her name.
She met Mr. Lurie that same year in the laundry room elevator in his apartment building. With his long red hair tied back in a bandana, “he looked very alternative,” Ms. Lurie said in 2004. “If he was wearing a suit and tie, I wouldn’t be interested at all.”
Although she said she was skeptical when she learned of his wealth, she learned they came from similar backgrounds — Mr. Lurie was raised by his mother in Detroit after his father died when the boy was 11 — and similar to hers. values were.
The couple had two children before marriage, and then four more. Mr. Lurie was diagnosed with cancer in 1988.
Ms. Lurie married Marc Muehm, a film editor and cinematographer, in 2014. She is survived by her six children, 16 grandchildren and her husband’s two sons.
In a 2004 interview, Ms. Lurie said she and Mr. Lurie tried to steer their children away from a life of money laziness. “We kept the kids grounded,” she said.
They took minimal help from home. Mr. Lurie even insisted on mowing his lawn and plowing his driveway himself. “He loved that kind of lifestyle,” Ms. Lurie said, “and so did I.”