Milton Petrie

One of the country's wealthiest men, with a fortune estimated at $940 million by Forbes magazine, Mr. Petrie became known as one of its most generous, using his millions to ease the burdens of everyday people in distress as well as for more traditional causes like cancer cures, the arts, and religious and educational institutions. He built a fortune from a retailing business that he built over several decades starting in the 1920's, as well as from investments he made for himself and for the Petrie Stores Corporation. His company's stores, which operate under a variety of different names, like Marianne, Stuarts, Rave and G& G, catered to budget-conscious women with inexpensive clothing and accessories. As shopping malls became fixtures of the American landscape, Petrie Stores began to acquire regional specialty store chains, establishing a strong national presence. In 1994, Petrie Stores owned 14.1 percent of Toys "R" Us, which then was worth about $1.5 billion. At that time Petrie Stores itself was in the process of liquidating by selling its 1,674 stores to an investor group and distributing its Toys "R" Us shares to its shareholders, most of whom reaped a hefty profit. Mr. Petrie's death did not alter those plans. In addition to his wife, Mr. Petrie is survived by three children, a son, Bernard, of San Francisco, and two daughters, Marianne Miller of Greenwich, Conn., and Patricia Hugenberg of Belvedere, Calif.; his first wife, Yetta, and two grandchildren. No recent will, lawyers believe, has run on longer than the 120-page tome filed on Monday in New York County Surrogate Court for the late Milton J. Petrie, founder and majority owner of Petrie Stores. In keeping with Mr. Petrie's life-long habit of adopting the down-and-out, the will meticulously arranges for more than $90 million in trusts and gifts, ranging from $5,000 to $15 million, to 383 individuals, a constantly changing list since Mr. Petrie was always adding to it. Mr. Petrie's largest cash grant: $15 million to his son Bernard, though Mr. Petrie's daughters from his second marriage, Patricia and Marianne, get only $5 million each, and a lot of it is in trusts. "He made gifts to them during his lifetime," Bernard Petrie said. "He did not do the same with me."