Gretchen Swanson

Gretchen Swanson was the daughter of Carl and Caroline Swanson. Carl Swanson was a turn-of-the-century produce wholesaler who founded frozen-food giant C.A. Swanson & Sons Co., and later under the leadership of her brothers, Gilbert C. and W. Clarke, the company developed the TV dinner. Swanson & Sons merged with Campbell Soup Co. in 1955. The Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition (formerly the Center for Human Nutrition) was established in 1973 by the late Gretchen Swanson as an independent nutrition center with global reach. Gretchen Swanson Velde, philanthropist, died at age 79. Illness had limited her activities for the past two years, said her older son, Frederick S. "Rick" Bucholz. Velde grew up in Omaha and graduated in 1941 from what was then Brownell Hall. She attended a junior college in Philadelphia and later Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. She married Frederick Bucholz in 1944. They divorced in 1960. She married Webster Pullen in 1962 and was widowed in 1980. She married John E. Velde Jr. in 1981. Survivors also include son Kurt Bucholz of Saratoga, Wyo., and five grandchildren.