One of America’s popular philanthropists, Ruth Lilly, was born
in August 1915 and died at the age of 94 in December 2009. Ruth
Lilly was the heiress to the Elli Lilly and Company
pharmaceutical treasure, an empire built by Colonel Eli Lilly,
Ruth Lilly’s great grandfather. She was active and influential
in the field of philanthropy. She was also an avid fan of
poetry. In November 2002, Ruth Lilly pledged around $100 million
worth of stocks to a small Chicago based nonprofit organization,
the Poetry Foundation. Aside from the Poetry Foundation, she
also offered a similar amount to another Washington based
organization, Americans for the Arts. The late heiress to the
Elli Lilly fortune, Ruth Lilly, was profiled in NNDB.com. The
Ruth Lilly Health Education Center was named after the late
heiress after she donated a generous amount of capital money to
the organization. Also known as the Indiana University School of
Medicine Library, the Ruth Lilly Medical Library remains as the
only academic health sciences libra