Meyerhoff, Lenore P. (Lenore Pancoe), 1927-1988

Lenore Pancoe was born in Winnetka, Ill. on 5 Aug. 1927, the daughter of Morris and Florence Pancoe. She attended New Trier High School in Winnetka (1942 to 1946), the University of Illinois, and the University of Wisconsin, although she did not earn a degree from either institution. Lyn, so called since about the age of sixteen, met Harvey "Bud" Meyerhoff (b. 6 Apr. 1927) in May 1947. They were engaged on 31 Oct. 1947, married on 21 June 1948, and later had four children. While raising the children, Lyn was very active in the community, performing fundraising for the Republican Party, supporting local and national candidates, and eventually appointed a citizen delegate to the United Nations in 1983 and 1984 by President Reagan, despite disagreeing with him and the party on issues such as abortion and prayer in schools. She was steadfast in her support of Israel and despised the verbal attacks leveled at the U.S. by hostile nations during her tenure at the U.N. In addition to politics, Meyerhoff was an active philanthropist. Together with her husband, she was instrumental in building the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. After her daughter Jill (Zoh) was diagnosed with Crohn's disease as a teenager, Meyerhoff took up the cause of digestive diseases. She served on the board of the National Foundation of Ileitis and Colitis, and she and her husband helped fund the Meyerhoff Digestive Disease Center at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. She was active at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, endowed the Jeane Kirkpatrick Forum at Tel Aviv University, and was a Planned Parenthood board member. She and her husband also founded the Children of Harvey and Lyn Meyerhoff Philanthropic Fund, which continues to support local and national charitable causes. She died on 6 Apr. 1988.