Virginia, her nephew Paul, and sister
Carol Critchfield at Camelback Inn, 1963

During the last year of Paul Galvin's life, the momentum of world events swept on.

Charles de Gaulle became the new French president, Fidel Castro took over Cuba, Jawaharlal Nehru was prime minister of India, and the Dalai Lama escaped from Communist Chinese forces entering Tibet. In America, Hawaii became the fiftieth state, hula hoops enjoyed a brief rage, and rock-and-roll continued to become a national musical phenomenon. Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music opened on Broadway, Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum opened in New York City, and on American television, 77 Sunset Strip, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Lawrence Welk Show were some of the nation's most popular programs. The '50s had been a decade of optimism and prosperity, with the domesticity of wives and mothers glorified even as more women than ever entered the workforce.

Against this international and national backdrop, Virginia, now a forty-eight-year- old widow, embarked on a new and solitary chapter of life, assuming duties and responsibilities, roles of leadership, and influence she had never experienced before. She inherited half of Paul's estate; the other half went to the Galvin family. For the next ten years, Virginia continued to live in her home at 3038 Normandy Place, where she had lived with Paul. Alma Althoff, her housekeeper and increasingly cherished friend, continued to live with Virginia as well. These were challenging, lonely years, relieved by family, friends, and the welcome distraction of musical and theatrical events, golf games, charity balls, fundraising events, and business meetings. Virginia's stepson, Bob Galvin, had become president of Motorola Corporation, and Mary, the new "president's wife," now filled the prestigious role that had once belonged to Virginia.

Robert Harris painting
Virginia's portrait

At the time of Paul's death, Virginia had been on excellent terms with the Galvin family. She remained devotedly close to her parents, sister, and teenage nephew, who were still living in Riverside, and maintained the friends she had shared with her husband, couples such as the Vincent Sills, Philip and B. J. Sheridan, and many others. But to have become the new widow of such a prominent and legendary figure as Paul Galvin could not have been an easy or swift adjustment.

After Paul's death, Virginia experienced an abrupt if subtle decline in social stature as her charitable responsibilities increased and her public profile receded. Virginia's life at this time was atypical. In a postwar era that glorified women as wives and mothers who ruled increasingly prosperous homes in the suburbs, Virginia had neither a husband nor children. What she had was her husband's wealth and her promise to complete his philanthropic projects, to honor his legacy. How to do that was the challenge she faced, but it was a challenge that became a comfort-as her strongest tie to Paul,and a test of character.

Just as hard work had been a source of emotional recovery and resilience in the Galvin family, Virginia, following her late husband's model, drew upon a natural discipline and native conscientiousness, coping with loneliness through work. Meeting regularly with Paul's bankers, stockbrokers, and financial advisors, principally with Hugh Solvsberg, at the Harris Trust Bank, she undertook the task of learning everything she could about the world of finance, investments, tax laws, and trust and estate accounts. Combining resolve with an innate dedication to detail, Virginia would become, under the tutelage of her trusted advisors, as astute and shrewd as any man of her era in the labyrinthine world of high finance, investment, and philanthropy. Virginia made it her business to be unintimidated, and the most honest way to do that was to learn exactly how the principles of business and finance operated.

She would not be known as the woman who had married well, and blithely signed checks for various causes; Virginia intently examined each project, charted its progress, gauged its leadership trajectory, and attended related functions. Her gifts, large and small, public and private, from the earliest years were accompanied by high standards, firm expectations, and an eye toward longevity and integrity of mission.

Doubtless, Virginia forged a new path of power and philanthropy unknown to most women of her era. Characteristically, philanthropy was considered men's work with their wives' names attached (if at all) to both major and minor gifts. Virginia initiated a journey that would prove remarkable in philanthropic scale and scope, unique (though initially unheralded) in American women's history and charitable giving. Was Virginia aware of how her life course would forge a new historical path-both in terms of philanthropy and women's stewardship? Perhaps. Virginia, however, was unmotivated by worldly pride or concern for social stature. The origins of her new journey were rooted in her own character, in her love for Paul Galvin and for humanity, and always in the abiding need to live "a dedicated life." Dedication for Virginia meant a tireless work ethic, visionary leadership, and a grounded understanding of the financial and social impact of her gifts.

One of Virginia's first charitable endeavors, among the hundreds that would compose her career, was to underwrite and see to fruition the Paul V. Galvin Coronary Care Center (CCC) at Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston. A subsidiary of the Paul V. Galvin Heart Center, the CCC would provide a complete program of cardiac care and put Saint Francis Hospital at the forefront of cardiac medicine in the state of Illinois, eventually earning it the name "The Heart Hospital." Saint Francis was the facility where Paul had died, so it seemed appropriate that Virginia's first major grant as chief administrator of the Paul V. Galvin Charitable Trust would be awarded to the hospital whose doctors, nurses, and staff had cared for him so skillfully and compassionately. Dr. Philip Sheridan, Paul's attending physician during his final illness, recounts the first stage of this early gift of Virginia's:

One day, after Paul had died, I got a call from Virginia, and she said, "Phil, I would like to visit with you because I have a program I've become interested in, and I want to know if you think I should underwrite it." I went over and visited her the next day, and she told me about the program, which I thought had a lot of merit, though it wasn't in my field; it was in the field of social science.

At that time, I was the overseer of a project at Saint Francis Hospital that Bob Galvin and his father, Paul, had underwritten, the foundation of the first heart center in Cook County in 1957. This was back when open-heart surgery was just being developed, and there was a lot of promise on the horizon because the chest surgeons had successfully taken on congenital heart defects in children, showing that, yes, we could operate on the heart. Before that, the surgeons had been afraid to even touch the heart. So an allied program had been developing in addition to an awakening concept in medicine that the quality of care for people having heart attacks could be improved with early treatment. It had been demonstrated at a couple of university hospitals that the mortality rate of people arriving at the hospital with heart attacks could be cut by 50 percent if they had a coronary care center with proper equipment. Our cardiologists were anxious to get that going, as they were already successful in doing cardiac catheterization work in the new heart center that Paul and Bob had underwritten.

Christopher, Robert, and Mary Galvin at the
Paul V. Galvin Coronary Care Unit

So I visited that day with Virginia and said, "I think your project is very nice, but I have another idea you may be interested in, one that I guarantee you will save many lives." She replied, "What's that?" So I described the concept of the coronary care center, and Virginia said, "I think I'll go with that instead. How much money do you think it will cost?" I told her I didn't know, that perhaps a quarter of a million dollars would handle it. As it turned out, it was closer to half a million, but she didn't object. That Paul V. Galvin Coronary Care Unit is still in full operation today, and it's saved thousands of lives. Virginia was present at the dedication, and John Patrick Cardinal Cody, bishop of Chicago at the time, dedicated the center. It is a magnificent tribute to her benefaction. She was so very gracious about it, including increased costs we hadn't anticipated. The CCC is still, today, an invaluable adjunct to the Paul V. Galvin Heart Center.