Ann Lurie, a self-described hippie who went on to grow to be considered one of Chicago’s most celebrated philanthropists, in a single occasion giving greater than $100 million to a hospital the place she had as soon as labored as a pediatric nurse, died on Monday. She was 79.
Her demise was introduced in an announcement by Northwestern College, to which Ms. Lurie, a trustee, had donated greater than $60 million. The assertion didn’t say the place she died or specify a trigger.
An solely baby raised in Miami by a single mom, Ms. Lurie protested the Vietnam Conflict whereas in school and deliberate to hitch the Peace Corps after she graduated. In interviews, she mentioned she chafed on the trappings of wealth even after marrying Robert H. Lurie.
Mr. Lurie had constructed an actual property and funding empire as a accomplice in Fairness Group Investments, teaming up with a former fraternity brother from the College of Michigan, Sam Zell, whose portfolio got here to incorporate The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Instances and the Chicago Cubs. Mr. Lurie held stakes within the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox.
He died of colon most cancers in 1990 at 48, leaving an property price $425 million. By 2007, Ms. Lurie had donated $277 million, in keeping with The Chicago Solar-Instances.
In recognition of the care Mr. Lurie acquired at Northwestern College’s most cancers middle, the couple endowed the Robert H. Lurie Complete Most cancers Middle of Northwestern College to increase its therapy and analysis capabilities.
After her husband’s demise, Ms. Lurie was president and treasurer of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Basis and the founder and president of Lurie Investments, which helped assist her charitable efforts.
Amongst her many initiatives at Northwestern, she arrange professorships in breast most cancers analysis and oncology on the Feinberg College of Drugs and helped fund the 12-story Robert H. Lurie Medical Analysis Middle.
Her $100 million reward helped fund the development of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Kids’s Hospital of Chicago, which changed Kids’s Memorial Hospital, the place Ms. Lurie had labored as a nurse beginning within the early Nineteen Seventies. The brand new hospital opened in 2012.
She was additionally a significant benefactor of the Better Chicago Meals Depository; Gilda’s Membership Chicago, a most cancers assist group named after Gilda Radner, who died of most cancers in 1989; and the College of Michigan. In 2004, Chicago honored Mr. Lurie by christening a four-block-long avenue West Ann Lurie Place.
Identified for her hands-on method to philanthropy, Ms. Lurie additionally made Africa and Asia a spotlight; for instance, she based Africa Infectious Illness Village Clinics in Kenya, which she supported for 12 years. Whereas serving as its director, she typically traveled there.
“The dictionary definition of philanthropy is to like and care about mankind,” she mentioned in a 2004 interview with The Solar-Instances. “Individuals will be philanthropists even when they by no means hit their checkbooks. It’s concerning the ardour you are feeling in the direction of those that reside in disadvantaged circumstances.”
Ms. Lurie was born on April 20, 1945. Her mother and father divorced when she was 4, and Ann, an solely baby, grew up in a home in Miami together with her mom, Marion Blue, a nurse, in addition to her grandmother and an aunt.
Ms. Lurie enrolled within the nursing program on the College of Florida in Gainesville. She married an aspiring lawyer and graduated in 1966.
Her plan to hitch the Peace Corps was waylaid when her husband began legislation faculty; though he was from an prosperous household, she later mentioned, she insisted that they dwell on her wage as a nurse.
The couple later settled in Fort Lauderdale, the place her husband began a legislation observe and Ms. Lurie labored as a nurse at a county hospital.
“His priorities have been significantly totally different,” she instructed The Solar-Instances, including that her husband had tooled round in a Porsche his household gave him. The couple divorced in 1971, and, Ms. Lurie mentioned, she “vowed to myself that I used to be by no means once more going to become involved with anybody who was rich.”
Lured by the tradition and variety of Chicago, she moved there “not understanding a soul,” she later mentioned, and labored as a pediatric intensive care nurse on the hospital that may finally bear her title.
She met Mr. Lurie that very same yr in an elevator to the laundry room of their condo constructing. Along with his lengthy purple hair tied again in a bandanna, “he regarded so various,” Ms. Lurie mentioned in 2004. “If he had on a go well with and tie, I wouldn’t have been in any respect.”
Though she mentioned she had misgivings when she discovered of his wealth, she discovered that they got here from related backgrounds — Mr. Lurie was raised by his mom in Detroit after his father died when the boy was 11 — and had related values.
The couple had two kids earlier than marrying, after which 4 extra. Mr. Lurie was recognized with most cancers in 1988.
Ms. Lurie married Mark Muheim, a movie editor and cinematographer, in 2014. He survives her, as do her six kids, 16 grandchildren and two of her husband’s sons.
Within the 2004 interview, Ms. Lurie mentioned she and Mr. Lurie had tried to steer their kids away from a lifetime of moneyed indolence. “We stored the youngsters grounded,” she mentioned.
They employed a minimal of family assist. Mr. Lurie even insisted on mowing their garden and plowing their driveway himself. “He cherished that form of way of life,” Ms. Lurie mentioned, “and so did I.”
