Obituary: Elsie Hillman, philanthropist and GOP pillar, dies at 89; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/4/15

Dan Majors, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Obituary: Elsie Hillman, philanthropist and GOP pillar, dies at 89:

"Though she would never run for public office, she worked quietly behind the scenes. Throughout the 1960s, Mrs. Hillman was expressing concern about the lack of African-American voices in politics — particularly in the Republican Party. She connected representatives of Pittsburgh’s black community to chief executive officers of major corporations and expanded political outreach beyond the tradition of the black churches.

“You didn’t know if she was a Democrat or a Republican,” said Jackie Dixon, an African-American woman from Fox Chapel who was elected to the Carlow University Board of Trustees with Mrs. Hillman’s support. “She was a truthful, good-hearted person, and you have to respect people who stand for principles.”

The pull of Mrs. Hillman’s politics was driven by her push for people. During the 1980s, when the stigma of AIDS had many people scared beyond caring, she delivered food baskets to dying victims and stayed to eat with them. She established the Republican Future Fund to promote centrist policies and female candidates to state office. And she was a staunch supporter of reproductive rights, a position that frequently caused friction in the party.

“While we are traditionally the party of limited government intrusion and personal responsibility, the social extremist wing of the Republican Party has taken over and made abolishing choice a focus for the party,” she complained in a 2009 letter to the Post-Gazette...

Terry Miller, director of the university’s Institute of Politics, hailed Mrs. Hillman for the time, effort, money and influence she invested in people and causes — including rights for women, minorities and gays — often when the stands were not popular...

While Mrs. Hillman remained dedicated to her convictions, she watched with dismay as her party shifted to the right, with hard-line stands on the Equal Rights Amendment, gay rights and abortion."