Leon Falk, Jr.

Philanthropist Leon Falk Jr. Dies

By David Guo and Carmen J Lee, Post-Gazette staff writers

Leon Falk Jr., 86, a leading Pittsburgh industrialist whose 50 years of philanthropy led to the establishment of the University of Pittsburgh's Falk Clinic and aided programs for Israel and minority groups, died of a stroke yesterday in Shadyside Hospital.

In one way or another, thousands of people in Pittsburgh and around the world have benefited from Mr. Falk’s philanthropy in medicine, politics, social policy and the arts. Through innumerable grants and projects, the Falk foundations poured more than $10 million into the University of Pittsburgh medical programs.

Mr. Falk was a principal player in the city's original Renaissance through the development of such complexes s Chatham Center. "He represented the best of the philanthropic spirit in our community in so many areas," said Alfred Wishart, executive director of the Pittsburgh Foundation, of which Mr. Falk was a founding member. "You can almost look in any direction and you're bound to find his gentle hand and intellect. When I heard [about his death], I felt a sense of loneliness, because I don't see people coming along willing to step into his shoes."

The Falk family fortune was founded on steel. Mr. Falk's father, Leon Sr., along with his uncle, Maurice, helped set up Weirton Steel Co. in the 19200s. It later became National Steel Corp.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1901, Mr. Falk graduated from Yale University in 1924 and went to work for Weirton Steel in 1926. After a stint as a purchasing agent, he was named treasurer in 1926. He was chairman of the board from 1948 to 1952 and later became executive director of National Steel's executive committee.

In 1929, he and his uncle established the Maurice and Laura Falk Foundation, which made large contributions to economic research, particularly through the creation and early support of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Until its demise in 1967, the foundation divided its support between national and international activities in the field of economics and its philanthropic work in the Pittsburgh community.

In the late 1930s, Mr. Falk became active in helping Jews escape Nazi Germany. One of his most celebrated efforts on their behalf was his personal intervention with the late Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo to allow admission of refugees there. Mr. Falk stayed for two years in the Dominican Republic -- which shares with Haiti the island of Hispaniola, southeast of Cuba in the Caribbean -- establishing an agricultural colony for Jewish immigrants.

Mr. Falk's most far-reaching contribution to Israel was made through the foundation, which sponsored and extensive study into Israel’s' agriculture and economy.

But Mr. Falk's altruism did not stop with Israel. He was deeply involved in numerous causes on behalf of the University of Pittsburgh, through a number of family-based endowments. "He profoundly shaped the history of this university for nearly a half-century. He was a member of University’s board of trustees for 44 years, and an emeritus trustee -- still brilliantly serving the university -- at the time of his death," University of Pittsburgh President Wesley W. Posvar said yesterday.

Mr. Falk's special legacy, Posvar said, endures in the health sciences and services. "Through Mr. Falk's vision, generosity and hard work, he helped lead Pitt and the university's health center hospitals to the world-wide prominence they enjoy today."

In 1960, Mr. Falk created the Maurice Falk Medical Fund and served as its chairman. This fund poured millions of dollars into Pitt’s Medical School as well as Falk Clinic, the outpatient center at Presbyterian-University Hospital. Mr. Falk headed the university’s division of the health professions from 1970-73. He contributed his 17-room residence on Devonshire Street, Shadyside, to Pitt in 1966 to be used as a home for the university’s president. Most recently, Mr. Falk lived on Grandview Avenue on Mount Washington.

During the 1960s, Mr. Falk urged that his fund concentrate on programs in the fields of race relations and minority affairs and devoted much of its resources into carefully analyzed social solutions. For example, the integration programs at Reizenstein Middle School were funded largely through a $200,000 Falk grant.

“In his own quiet way, he was carrying out his own deep-felt desires by encouraging the fund to take on the most difficult of problems, namely racism, ethnic conflict and child mental health,” said Dr. Bertram S. Brown. He is senior physician for quality of assurance for the U.S Department of Defense, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health and a trustee for the Falk Medical Fund.

Mr. Falk was well known as a farmer, raising and marketing cattle at the family farm, Falkland Farms, at Schellsburg, Bedford County. He won fame and honors at national dairy cattle shows for his breeding of jersey cows. Among the 400 ribbons he earned, he often said his proudest was for Martina, a national grand champion. After World War II, Mr. Falk started breeding polled Herefords and was a director of the Polled Hereford Association from 1967 to 1971. He was inducted into the Polled Hereford Association Hall of Fame in 1975.

Mr. Falk was an active supporter of the arts, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Society and the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, into which he and his wife, Loti, breathed life and support for nearly two decades. Most recently, they gave the ballet theater its new headquarters in the Strip District. Mr. Falk was a member of the executive committee of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development and a trustee and member of the executive committee of Presbyterian-University Hospital.

He was decorated with the Order of Juan Pablo Duarte by the Dominican Republic and the French Legion of Honor. He received an honorary law degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Mr. Falk was married three times. His first wife was Katherine Sonneborn, a New York socialite whom he wed in 1926. The couple lived in Squirrel Hill until being divorced in 1947. She died in San Diego in 1983.

In 1948, Mr. Falk married Josephine S. Ross, his first wife’s sister. Josephine Falk died in 1962 while napping aboard the family yacht off Florida's east coast.

In 1963, Mr. Falk married Loti Grunberg Gerard, another New York socialite who, like Mr. Falk, was widely traveled in France, Italy and Switzerland.

In addition to Mrs. Falk, survivors include three daughters, Ellen Falk Hirsch of Jerusalem, Sara Falk Moser of La Jolla, Calif., and Susannah Falk Shopsin of New York City; two sons, Sigo Falk of Thornburg and David Falk of Washington, D.C.; four stepsons, Joseph Ross of Boston, Mass., Stephen Ross of Sacramento, Calif.; Robert Gerard of New York City and Peter Gerard of Dallas, Texas; a stepdaughter, Ann Heymann of Boston, Mass; 6 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

Friends will be received from 2 to 8 p.m. today in H. Samson Inc., 537 N. Neville St., Oakland. Private burial will be in Schellsburg.

Published: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Jun 10, 1988

• * * * * * * * * *

LEON FALK, EXECUTIVE, DIES AT 86

Leon Falk Jr., an industrialist and philanthropist who also raised purebred cattle, died yesterday at Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh after a series of strokes. A lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, he was 86 years old.

Mr. Falk, a graduate of Phillips Exeter and Yale, entered the metals business in the 1920's and became a high official of National Steel, which became the fifth-largest steel company in the United States. He was also a director of the Duquesne Light Company and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. In World War II he was vice president of the Commodity Credit Corporation and a bureau chief in the War Foods Adminstration.

Mr. Falk was a longtime official of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and of other overseas relief agencies. In Pittsburgh he was president of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and a member of the executive committee of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. He served as vice president of the University of Pittsburgh for 40 years.

In 1926 he bought the property that later became Falkland Farms in Schellsburg, Pa., where he raised purebred Polled Hereford cattle. He was elected chairman of the Polled Hereford Association in 1970 and is a member of the association's Hall of Fame.

He leaves his wife, Lori; a sister, Marjorie Falk of New York; three daughters, Ellen Hirsch of Jerusalem; Sara Moser of La Jolla, Calif., and Susannah Shopsin of New York; two sons, Sigo of Pittsburgh and David of Washington, D.C.; a stepdaughter, Ann Heymann of Boston; four stepsons, Joseph Ross of Boston, Stephen Ross of Sacramento, Calif., Robert Gerard of New York and Peter Gerard of Dallas, and 27 grandchildren.

Published: June 10, 1988, New York Times

"United States Social Security Death Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VSKL-NTY : 8 January 2021), Leon Falk, 09 Jun 1988; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).

Photo of grave is in findagrave.com