Sylvia Eggleston Wehr, prolific fundraiser for numerous Johns Hopkins entities, dies

Sylvia Eggleston Wehr, a Johns Hopkins fundraiser who worked in public health and libraries and museums, died of cancer Oct. 29 at the Blakehurst Retirement Community in Towson. She was 83.

Born in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville, she was the daughter of Ralph I. Johnson, a Sealtest ice cream manager, and Hazel, a social worker and school counselor. A 1958 graduate of Catonsville High School, she earned a degree at Goucher College.

On a blind date, she met her future husband, Joseph C. Eggleston, who was then a Johns Hopkins medical student. They married and lived in Stoneleigh in Towson.

She was the president of the Junior League of Baltimore from 1977 to 1979, and assisted with the Govans-Parent-Infant-Center and Baltimore’s Radio Reading Service for the blind. She also worked at Goucher.

After her husband’s death in 1989, she earned a master’s degree in business administration from the Johns Hopkins University. She joined what was then the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

“I was 44 years old, the mother of three daughters. I had done lots of volunteer work … but the [Hopkins] job was many orders of magnitude more intense,” she wrote in a published memoir.

“It was my first formal fundraising job. … I remember [then-dean] D.A. [Henderson] returning a draft proposal to me that I had written to the Pew Foundation for $1 million. He edited in red — and there was red everywhere,” she wrote. “He called and said, ‘It took me maybe 20 minutes to edit that proposal and it was great, and I didn’t want you to find all that red insulting. … And we got the $1 million.”

She was promoted to associate dean for external affairs at the School of Hygiene and Public Health and became one of a handful of women then working at the executive level within the university in the 1980s.

She worked on a successful fundraising campaign for the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, which was founded in 2001.

In 2007, she became associate dean of external affairs at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and headed a Gilman Hall renovation campaign, both of which are part of Hopkins.

She then became the associate dean for external affairs at the Sheridan Libraries and University Museums.

At her retirement ceremony in 2022, she said she embraced “a fascinating new world of first editions and medieval manuscripts, Federal and Victorian architecture, online databases, open source software, and so much more.”

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A friend, James Williams, said: “Sylvia was a force of nature with an extensive network of adoring friends. She is credited with raising more than $1 billion for the university.”

She secured funding to create four endowed curator positions and the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History of the Book in the Renaissance. She also helped establish several research fellowships.

“Sylvia shepherded the acquisition of significant collections of fine art and sculpture, rare books and ephemera, African American street photography, and the archives of Baltimore jazz singer Ethel Ennis and her husband Earl Arnett,” according to a statement from Hopkins.

“Sylvia was in a class by herself: So much fun, so productive, fearless, and creative. I always looked forward to our meetings every Monday at 4 to get my assignments for the next week,” said Winston Tabb, a former Hopkins library dean.

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“Sylvia’s natural joie de vivre and extroversion made her an exemplary leader and host, which she got to exhibit internally at her now legendary holiday staff parties,” said Elisabeth M. Long, a Hopkins dean of libraries, archives and museums.

She was a past chair of the Homewood Museum Advisory Board.

“A savvy, intrepid, and remarkably effective fundraiser, with a keen eye for spotting and mentoring talent,” Ms. Long said.

In her free time, Ms. Wehr read extensively, solved crossword puzzles and spent time in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, at a weekend home.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer at 5603 N. Charles St.

Her first husband, Dr. Joseph C. Eggleston, died in 1989. She married Frederick T. Wehr, who died in 2005. Her marriage to Dr. Richard T. Johnson ended with his 2015 death.

Survivors include three daughters, Elizabeth Eggleston Drigotas, of Baltimore, Anne Eggleston Broadus, of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Elaine Eggleston Doherty, of Baltimore; stepchildren Jennifer Wehr Clouse, of Sparks, Frederick Lewis Wehr II, of Australia, and Emily Wehr Emerick, of Monkton; and 13 grandchildren.