Mary Riepma Ross leaves legacy for film at the University

(left to right) Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center Director Danny Ladely, Mary Riepma Ross and Sheldon Director Emeritus Norman Geske at the dedication of The Ross in September 2003.
(left to right) Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center Director Danny Ladely, Mary Riepma Ross and Sheldon Director Emeritus Norman Geske at the dedication of The Ross in September 2003.

Mary Riepma Ross, a retired lawyer and past president of the New York Women’s Bar Association, whose generous donation to the University of Nebraska Foundation helped create the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, died on Feb. 2 in New York at the age of 102.

“As a result of Mary Riepma Ross’s gift to UNL, the campus and the community have enjoyed award winning feature films, documentaries, short features, animated films, foreign films and students works in state-of-the-art theaters that rival movie houses anywhere in the country,” said Lucy Buntain Comine, Senior Director of Special Projects at the University of Nebraska Foundation. “I am grateful to Mary for her remarkable generosity, but most of all for her wonderful friendship and mentoring during the past 25 years.”

Charles O’Connor, Endowed Dean of the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, said film in Lincoln was forever changed by Ross’ generosity.

“Mary’s gift to create the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center really changed the film landscape in Lincoln,” O’Connor said. “Not only does the Ross give the entire community the chance to see films we wouldn’t have the chance to see here otherwise, but the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center houses the film program of the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. This building provides both our students and the community with a world-class facility to both study and to appreciate film.”

Born in Oklahoma City in 1910, Ross attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and graduated from Vassar College in 1932. She received her law degree from Memphis State University. The University of Nebraska awarded her an honorary doctor of law degree in 1973.

In the early 1940’s she worked for the United States government in Washington, chiefly in the Office of Alien Property. She moved to New York in 1946 to work for what is now Rogers & Wells, where she became an expert in wills, trusts and estates.

She served on various committees of the American Bar Association, Bar Association of the City of New York and the New York Women’s Bar Association, including its Committee for Equal Opportunities for Women in the 1940’s. She served as President of the womens’ group in 1955-57.

She left Rogers & Wells in 1961 to begin private practice and also became active in philanthropic work, serving on the Board of the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, the Central Park Community Fund, the University of Nebraska Foundation and other organizations.

In 1989, she pledged $3.5 million for the construction of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s film theater, which became the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center when it opened in 2003. Prior to 2003, the public film theater had been open in the Sheldon Museum of Art since 1973. It was named after Ross in 1990.

“Mary was the best patron to have,” said Danny Ladely, Director of the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center. “She loved movies and had very good tastes, at least in my opinion. She often sent me letters (always on Hotel Pierre stationary, where she lived) containing reviews of films she had seen. I almost always followed her recommendations, so getting her letters was always exciting.”

Ladely said the facility is an enduring legacy to Ross.

“Her wonderful gift to the University and to this community is her great legacy and our great fortune,” Ladely said. “We are so lucky that she so generously made The Ross happen. Only a handful of universities and probably hardly any communities the size of Lincoln have this quality of a facility.”