Marylou Whitney
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Marylou Whitney (b. Marie Louise Schroeder, December 24, 1925, Kansas City, Missouri) is a prominent socialite. Whitney has homes in New York City, Saratoga Springs and on Long Island's North Shore. She is also a noted philanthropist.
Married to Frank Hosford in 1948, and after a divorce, to Cornelius Vanderbilt "Sonny" Whitney in 1958. After Sonny Whitney's death in 1992, Marylou Whitney married John Hendrickson (b. 1960), a (then) 32-year-old tennis champ and former aide to Governor Walter Joseph Hickel of Alaska.
Her late husband's family were a major force in thoroughbred horse racing and in 2003, she made a $100,000 donation to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, an organization that stables approximately seven hundred thoroughbred horses at twenty-five farms throughout the United States with a mission of finding new homes through adoption by private citizens.
"Marylou Whitney Stables" owns Birdstone, the 2004 Belmont Stakes winner.
[edit] Breast cancer activist
Marylou Whitney and John Hendrickson donated $2.5 million for the Marylou Whitney and John Hendrickson Cancer Facility for Women at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center. The building was dedicated in Lexington, Kentucky in December, 2001 by officials from the University of Kentucky and the McDowell Cancer Foundation.[1]
The Marylou Whitney and John Hendrickson Cancer Facility for Women is 45,465 square feet and opened in 2002. It provides multidisciplinary ambulatory care for women suffering from breast cancer, gynecologic cancers, and lung, hematologic, gastrointestinal and urologic cancers.[2]
Philantropist and thoroughbred owner and breeder Marylou Whitney co-chaired the annual luncheon to raise funds to battle breast cancer for The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. About $100,000 was raised for the Foundation.[3]
