The Lila Acheson Wallace Galleries of Egyptian Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
LILA WALLACE, WHO BESTOWED READER'S DIGEST WEALTH, DIES
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May 9, 1984
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Lila Acheson Wallace, the co-founder and longtime co-chairman of Reader's Digest whose philanthropic donations totaled scores of millions of dollars, died of heart failure yesterday morn at her Mount Kisco, N.Y., home. She was 94 years quondam and had been in declining health for some time.
The shy, strong-willed daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman, Mrs. Wallace for years wielded extensive, though indirect, influence over the Reader's Digest publishing combine through her husband, DeWitt Wallace. Mr. Wallace, who founded the magazine with his married woman in 1922, died in 1981 at the age of 91.
When Mrs. Wallace chose to practise leadership at the Digest directly, she sometimes told associates simply, ''Do your best.''
Mrs. Wallace took enormous involvement in, and pains over, her numerous philanthropies. They ranged from big gifts to The Juilliard School of Music and the New York Zoological Society, to restoring a mansion on the Hudson River, temples at Abu Simbel in Egypt and the painter Monet's house and grounds at Giverny, France, to providing daily fresh flowers in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Great Hall.
Once, several years ago, while appreciatively sipping a martini from a 4,000-year-old gold Egyptian cup at her Mount Kisco home, Mrs. Wallace told visitors: ''If I displayed this cup, I might expect at it one time or twice a week. By using it, I get pleasance from it continually.''
She as well brought her energy and attention to item to purchases of art, fabricated in the mag'southward name, that grew into a multimillion dollar collection. She in one case told an interviewer that she bought paintings non with regard to their time to come worth simply merely because she ''fell in love with them.''
''A painting is like a homo,'' she said with a smile. ''If you can alive without information technology, so in that location isn't much point in having information technology.''
A spokesman for the Assimilate said that Mrs. Wallace's philanthropies over the years had totaled ''far in excess of $60 million.''
Her philanthropic action declined in recent years as her health became more frail, he said, simply the several philanthropic foundations she and her husband had set up take continued to brand donations of millions of dollars a twelvemonth to various causes and institutions.
The spokesman said Mr. and Mrs. Wallace had donated ''substantial portions'' of their wealth to the foundations during their lifetimes, simply said he did not know exactly how much.
One of Mrs. Wallace's major interests was Boscobel, an 18th-century mansion on the Hudson River virtually Garrison, N.Y. Boscobel gave her an opportunity to express her concern for Americana, interior ornamentation and flowers, and to its restoration she contributed more than than $viii 1000000. Apart from coin, she gave personal attention to the details of the restoration and to the gardens of the manor house, for Mrs. Wallace wanted to run into matters she had a paw in done to her standards. Museum Likewise Aided
Another major involvement was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to which she contributed both her time and her wealth. She became an influence within the museum - powerful enough to be heeded by Thomas Hoving when he was its manager. Restoration of the museum'southward Groovy Hall was one focus of her energies, and while it was under style she came every week from her abode to watch the progress.
Last year, the museum opened 32 modernized galleries, named in her honor and containing ancient Egyptian art.
Associated with her interest in the museum was a gift of well over $i meg in 1966 to the American Committee to Save Abu Simbel, the ancient Egyptian temples, which she and her husband had once visited and admired.
She became particularly fascinated with restoring the house and grounds at Giverny where Claude Monet painted his famous flowers and lily ponds. The Metropolitan's 1978 Monet bear witness was defended to Mrs. Wallace. Supporter of Music and Dance
The $eight million that she gave to The Juilliard School was for programs in music and drama, and the $5 million she gave to the New York Zoological Society went mainly for structure of the World of Birds exhibition facilities at the Bronx Zoo.
In addition, Mrs. Wallace gave at least $1 meg to the Academy of Oregon, her alma mater; $2 1000000 to the Young Women'southward Christian Association, for which she in one case worked; $ane.6 million for an auditorium at the Asia Lodge; $1 million to the New York Botanical Garden; $i million to the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research; $2 million to the Near East Foundation; more than than $iv 1000000 - given jointly with her husband - to the Northern Westchester Infirmary Eye, and bottom sums to the Metropolitan Opera, New York Hospital, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and various Presbyterian churches.
Some of her gifts were evident in Mount Kisco. She decided several years ago that Leonard Park in the village needed a shelter, so she had one that looked like a pagoda put upward for $50,000. When the Mount Kisco A.M.E. Zion Baptist Church was conducting a fund drive several years agone and hoping for $25 and $fifty contributions, Mrs. Wallace heard about it and sent forth her cheque for $fifty,000.
Another great source of pleasance and satisfaction to Mrs. Wallace was her art collecting. She clustered a collection of modernistic art, mostly French Impressionism, worth near $5 million by some estimates, though the Digest never disclosed its worth. The collection included works by Cezanne, Braque, Bonnard, Chagall, Corot, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Matisse, Modigliani, Pissarro, Rouault, Sisley, Soutine and Utrillo. Adorning Role Walls
The pictures were used to decorate the Reader'southward Digest offices. They were arrayed on the walls and in the reception rooms and, sometimes, editors were startled to find an oil placed in their private quarters. To Mrs. Wallace, the fine art displays were proof that beauty and business organisation could coexist.
One of her views was that fresh flowers added to a room's beauty. And these were supplied daily to the Digest, either from her own gardens or from a nursery. Often she made the arrangements herself. She was a passionate gardener.
Although she added fine art and flowers and supervised the magazine'due south covers, Mrs. Wallace's influence on the Digest'south contents was indirect. She sometimes suggested article ideas through her husband and, less frequently, in memorandums to executives. She was, still, responsible for many of the benefits extended to Digest employees, including short vacation workweeks. 'Lists of Lists'
Withal, Mrs. Wallace was a remote figure to virtually Assimilate employees. From her home, she communicated by handwritten memo. She possessed a very organized mind and, co-ordinate to Digest executives, i of her master contributions to the magazine was her capacity for organizing her husband and thus easing his editorial tasks.
At her death, a Digest spokesman said, Mrs. Wallace endemic all the voting stock of the Reader's Digest Clan Inc., headquartered in Chappaqua, N.Y., which owns and operates the Reader'due south Assimilate magazine and other divisions that publish books and records equally well every bit magazines in this country and abroad.
She retired every bit co-chairman of The Reader'southward Digest Association Inc. in 1973 but connected as a director until her expiry.
Mrs. Wallace and her husband had no children. An internal memorandum distributed to Digest employees yesterday said Mrs. Wallace'south voting stock would pass, under the terms of her volition, to The Dewitt and Lila Wallace Trust, insuring that the clan would continue to exist a privately held company. Statement of the Association
The association, in its statement to its x,000 employees worldwide yesterday, said: ''She was a vital and a joyful participant in every aspect of life at Reader'due south Digest. Nosotros shall miss her, simply we shall be forever grateful for her life.'' Former Representative and Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird, who is now the Digest'south senior counselor for national and international affairs, said: ''Publishing, music, art, opera and the performing arts accept lost a grand woman. Her contribution to all will be a living memorial to her for many, many decades.''
Mrs. Wallace was built-in Lila Bell Acheson in Virden, Manitoba, the third of five children of the Rev. T. Davis Acheson and the former Mary Huston. Her male parent, a Presbyterian minister, before long moved his family unit to the United states and brought them up in the small-scale Middle Western towns where he preached.
She attended Ward Belmont College in Nashville and so the University of Oregon, from which she graduated in 1917. Joining her family unit in Washington Country, she taught loftier school for two years in Eatonville and helped manage a Y.West.C.A. summertime home on an island in Puget Audio. The ''Y'' employed her in World War I to organize recreational centers for women working in the East, and she continued in social work after the war. Sent to Minneapolis
In 1920, she was sent to constitute an industrial ''Y'' in Minneapolis. Mr. Wallace met her there and they became engaged almost immediately. They were married in Pleasantville, North.Y., in October 1921.
From the showtime, Mrs. Wallace had faith in her husband's plan to publish a mag that excerpted articles from other periodicals. The venture, undertaken in the confront of general discouragement and with borrowed capital, materialized considering of the Wallaces' persistence and willingness to do most of the work themselves.
Their get-go office was a basement room in Greenwich Village. While Mr. Wallace spent hours working at the New York Public Library, his wife blimp envelopes and addressed subscription appeals. The first effect, in February 1922, circulated 5,000 copies.
The Digest, the spokesman said yesterday, at present appears in 41 editions in 17 languages around the world with a total circulation of 30 one thousand thousand, of which 18 million is in the United States.
After a twelvemonth, the couple moved themselves and their magazine into a rented garage and pony shed in Pleasantville, where equally the magazine grew they expanded their offices. In the mid-1930's, they built the present Georgian-style offices in nearby Chappaqua. Responsible for Design
The design of the brick construction, and of its subsequent annexes, was chiefly Mrs. Wallace's business, and she worked hard to brand it an industrial showplace. She suggested for the cupola the four decorative figures of the winged horse, Pegasus, that made up the magazine'southward keepsake.
The Assimilate paid handsome returns to Mrs. Wallace and her husband, who were its two principal stockholders. In the beginning, Mrs. Wallace owned 49 pct of the shares, and her husband 51 percent; but in subsequent years, the sale or gift of pocket-sized amounts of stock to key executives lowered their holdings.
It was after her husband died on March xxx, 1981, Mrs. Wallace came to own all of the voting stock.
The Wallace'south castle-like home in Mountain Kisco, Loftier Winds, was imposing, but they lived rather quietly. Mrs. Wallace edged slightly into public view in 1954 when she became the commencement woman on the board of what was so the New York Cardinal Railroad. She had supported the late Robert R. Young's bid for the railroad, and remarked at the time, ''I remember everything needs a woman'southward touch.''
Over the years, she won numerous awards, including the Gilt Door Honor, for her contributions to American life and civilisation. In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon presented the Medal of Freedom, the highest award that tin can be given an American civilian, to her and to her husband.
5 years later, New York City renamed its floating hospital, which provides gratuitous medical and dental treatment to the poor and the elderly, afterwards her. She was also a trustee of the New York Zoological Society.
She had no immediate survivors. The company spokesman said a private memorial service was planned. The mag asked that donations in Mrs. Wallace's proper noun be made toward the restoration of Boscobel.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/09/obituaries/lila-wallace-who-bestowed-reader-s-digest-wealth-dies.html
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