Ann Lurie, a self-described hippie who later became one of Chicago’s most famous philanthropists, at one time donating more than $100 million to a hospital where she had worked as a pediatric nurse, died Monday. She was 79.
Her death was announced in a statement from Northwestern University, to which Lurie, a trustee, had 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 graduation. In interviews, she said that she chafed at the trappings of wealth even after marrying Robert H. Lurie.
Lurie had built a real estate and investment empire as a partner in Equity Group Investments, working with a former University of Michigan fraternity mate, Sam Zell, whose portfolio once included The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Cubs. Lurie had stakes in the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox.
He died of colon cancer in 1990 at age 48, leaving behind an estate of $425 million. By 2007, 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 donated to the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University to expand its treatment and research capabilities.
Following her husband’s death, Mrs. Lurie served as president and treasurer of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Foundation and founder and president of Lurie Investments, which helped support her charitable efforts.
Among his many projects at Northwestern, he created research chairs in breast cancer and oncology at the Feinberg School of Medicine and helped fund the 12-story Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center.
Her $100 million gift helped fund construction of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, which replaced Children’s Memorial Hospital, where Ms. Lurie had worked as a nurse in the early 1970s. The new hospital opened in 2012.
She was also a major benefactor of the Greater Chicago Food Depository; Gilda’s Club Chicago, a cancer support organization 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 Ann 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. While she served as director, she often traveled there.
“The dictionary definition of philanthropy is loving and caring for humanity,” he said in a 2004 interview with The Sun-Times. “People can be philanthropists even if they never have money in their checking account. It’s about the passion you have for those who live 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 a 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 was thwarted when her husband began law school; although he came from a wealthy family, she later said, she insisted that they live off her salary as a nurse.
The couple later settled in Fort Lauderdale, where her husband began practicing law and Mrs. Lurie worked as a nurse at a county hospital.
“His priorities were considerably different,” she told The Sun-Times, adding that her husband had driven around in a Porsche given to him by his family. The couple divorced in 1971, and, Lurie said, “I promised myself I would never get involved with anyone rich again.”
Drawn to Chicago’s culture and diversity, she moved there “without knowing anyone,” 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 an elevator leading to the laundry room of her apartment building. With her long red hair pulled back in a bandana, “he seemed so alternative,” Mr. Lurie said in 2004. “If he had been wearing a suit and tie, I wouldn’t have been interested at all.”
Though he said he had doubts when he learned of their wealth, he learned that they came from similar backgrounds (Mr. Lurie was raised by his mother in Detroit after his father died when the boy was 11) and had similar values.
The couple had two children before marrying and then four more. Mr. Lurie was diagnosed with cancer in 1988.
Ms. Lurie married Mark Muheim, a film editor and director of photography, in 2014. He survives her, as does her six children, 16 grandchildren and two of her husband’s children.
In the 2004 interview, Lurie said that she and Lurie had tried to steer their children away from a life of economic indolence. “We kept the kids grounded,” she said.
They hired minimal household help. Mr. Lurie even insisted on mowing the lawn and plowing the driveway himself. “He loved that kind of lifestyle,” Mr. Lurie said, “and so did I.”
