Ruth Perelman, Penn benefactor, dies of pneumonia

Ruth Perelman — who along with her husband Raymond, a 1940 Wharton graduate, had been among Penn’s largest benefactors — died Sunday morning of pneumonia.

“Philadelphia has lost a most beloved and consummately gracious civic leader with the passing of Ruth Perelman,” Penn President Amy Gutmann said in a statement. “In our city’s centuries-long history, Mrs. Perelman and her husband, Raymond, have made a mark unlike any other.”

Perelman, 90, and her husband had given a number of large gifts to the University over the years, the most recent of which was a $225 million donation to the School of Medicine in May — the largest gift in Penn’s history. The school was renamed the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine in their honor.

“Ruth and I believe the future of medicine depends on the ability to produce world-class clinicians and researchers, the hallmark of a Penn education,” Raymond, a Penn Medicine trustee, wrote in an email at the time.

The couple also donated $25 million to fund the development of the Ruth and Raymond Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine at Penn in 2005.

“Ruth was an enlightened philanthropist and devoted friend and supporter of arts, education and health causes throughout the region,” said Timothy Rub — the director and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, another institution to which the Perelmans have been major contributors — in a statement. “Elegant, wise, civic-minded and committed to helping people in need, Ruth was a full partner with her husband Raymond in the couple’s philanthropy, which helped transform so many Philadelphia organizations.”

Raymond told The Associated Press in an interview on Sunday that the two of them had been married for 70 years. “Whoever knew her really loved her because she was a kind person,” he said.

Perelman is survived by her husband, sons Ronald and Jeffrey, sister, eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, according to the The Philadelphia Inquirer. She died at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

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