Remembering Florence Boone
April 1st, 2012
Florence Hagenah Boone | 1918-2012
Memorial Service
Friday, May 11 at 11 am
Music Institute of Chicago
1490 Chicago Avenue (at Grove Street)
Evanston, IL 60201
Interment private Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, WI.
Memorials may be made to Midwest Palliative & Hospice CareCenter
2050 Claire Court | Glenview, IL 60026
More information at: donnellanfuneral.com or 847.675.1990
Florence Boone, life trustee of the Music Institute of Chicago and generous patron of the arts, died after a long illness on April 29 at her home in Glencoe.
Music and the arts played an important part in Florence Boone’s life from an early age. Having studied piano through grammar school, she took up voice in high school and majored in theatre at Smith College.
In 1943 she married Edgar Corry, and they eventually settled in Glencoe where Mrs. Boone became involved in the PTA and scouting. Edgar Corry passed away in 1968, and she married William A. Boone in 1971. She served on the Glencoe School Board, the New Trier School Board and was president of the Village of Glencoe from 1976 to 1985. She chaired the Chicago Area Transportation Study’s Council of Mayors and headed the Pace Transportation Board for 13 years.
In addition, Mrs. Boone was an active supporter of music in Chicago. She was a founding member of the Lyric Center for Young American Artists (now the Ryan Center) and active concertgoer, trustee, and advocate for both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Civic Orchestra. Florence Boone was always supportive of young vocalists and was instrumental in establishing the Midwest Region of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in Chicago. She became a trustee of the Music Center of the North Shore (now the Music Institute of Chicago) in 1970. In 1987, Mrs. Boone played an integral role in attracting past president Frank Little to the Music Institute of Chicago.
With the opening of the Music Institute of Chicago’s Nichols Concert Hall in 2003, came an extraordinary gift, a 1914 E.M. Skinner Pipe Organ (the oldest operating organ in Illinois). However, the magnificent gift was in dire need of repair and Mrs. Boone, a founding member of the Friends of the Skinner Organ, co-led the restoration efforts that renewed the mahogany and walnut exterior to its original beauty and breathed new life into the inner-workings of this “king of instruments.”
In 2006, she spearheaded the efforts to create An Affectionate Chronicle, a book detailing a 75-year historic retrospective of the Music Institute of Chicago.
A year later, she received the 2007 Millennium Award for 37 years of service and dedication to the Music Institute of Chicago.
For the next five years, Mrs. Boone remained an active member of board as a Patron Society member and served on the finance and audit committee. Rita Spitz, Music Institute of Chicago board treasurer said, “Flo's friendship, wisdom, and humor have been special gifts to me from MIC. She was a gem.”
“I knew Flo for more than twenty years and was always inspired by her insightful thinking, warmth, sense of humor, sharp intelligence and dedication to the Music Institute of Chicago, said board president, Alexandra Nichols. We were blessed to have her as a part of our MIC family for those years, and I will always cherish my memories of times shared with her. For me, there is such a sense of loss in her passing.”