Few former nurses find themselves in a position to give away $100 million to their former hospital. But Ann Lurie, who died Monday at the age of 79, once was a pediatric critical care nurse at the former Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, back when it was in Lincoln Park.
That experience of watching infants being kept alive by respirators, along perhaps with a mother’s admonition to “do a good deed daily,” led to Lurie funding a flagship downtown institution to which many Illinois families of our acquaintance have cause to be deeply grateful.
Chicago has many philanthropists. But Lurie’s work truly was as exceptional as her intelligence. Her resources came from the real estate and investment prowess of her husband, Bob, a partner with the late Sam Zell and possessive of a comparably maverick appearance. But Bob Lurie died in 1990 from colon cancer at the age of 48. After his affairs were untangled from those of Zell (who once was involved with this newspaper), Ann Lurie found she had formidable resources at her disposal.
Over the last 34 years, she used them exceptionally well, personally running the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Family Foundation, focused on supporting mostly health-related causes, although it interpreted that mandate as including efforts toward disease prevention. She continued to help the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, named for her husband, but also the Greater Chicago Food Depository. She gave away hundreds of millions of dollars, with the vast majority of that money supporting institutions within the city of Chicago.
Wealthy philanthropists often are heralded as “leaders” by those who depend on their support; it’s typically an honorific, but in the case of the famously smart and hands-on Lurie, it was singularly accurate.
Thanks for your work, Ann, especially all you did to help Chicagoland kids get better.
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