Great Living Cincinnatians: Honorees

1912 – 2012

Louise D. Nippert was a woman of many enthusiasms who has freely given of her time and money for decades. But she does things her way – behind the scenes, without fanfare, and always with grace and pride in her hometown’s people and institutions.

“My husband and I always gave to Cincinnati projects. We never sent money out of the city,” Mrs. Nippert said at age 83. Her husband, the late Louis B. Nippert, received the Great Living Cincinnatian Award in 1975.

Born Louise Dieterle, Mrs. Nippert, a professionally trained singer, called music her greatest love, and in 1987 she received a special Post-Corbett Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to the arts in Cincinnati.

“The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is most important to me, because it is the basis for all the good musical things that happen here,” said Mrs. Nippert, a trustee emeritus of the orchestra, the May Festival, the Cincinnati Opera and Matinee Musicale.

Over the years, Mrs. Nippert and her husband Louis gave hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it anonymously, to many Cincinnati institutions, including education, medicine, the symphony and the zoo. Mrs. Nippert and her husband established and endowed chairs at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. and Mrs. Nippert were principal owners of the Cincinnati Reds in the 1970s, and she remained a limited partner in Reds ownership for several years after. Those involved with the “Big Red Machine” credit Mrs. Nippert for building the family atmosphere that contributed greatly to the team’s success.

In 1988, the Nipperts founded Greenacres Foundation to convert their homestead in Indian Hill into an education center. The foundation’s mission reflects their interests – environmental and cultural-arts education. Hundreds of school children and teachers each year visit the center, free of charge, for classes and to observe a working farm.

Louise Dieterle Nippert died on Monday, July 23, 2012 at her Indian Hill farm. Nippert was 100.