Obit published in the NY Times, Aug. 19, 2007.

Jeremiah Milbank Jr., who followed in the footsteps of his father, a leading philanthropist and a close friend of President Herbert Hoover, to become an important Republican fund-raiser and benefactor of people with disabilities, died on Aug. 7 in Charlottesville, Va. He was 87.

Mr. Milbank Jr. was an early and strong backer of the presidential candidacy of Senator Barry M. Goldwater; twice chairman of the Republican National Finance Committee during the terms of Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, and, in 1975, originator of the Republican Eagles, a designation for major donors to the party.

He later used family foundations to sprinkle donations among the conservative and libertarian research groups, like the Heritage Foundation, that sprouted or gathered momentum after Goldwater’s defeat in 1964. His son said the common denominator of his giving was promoting private enterprise and self-help.

Some gifts were directed toward helping injured and disabled people rehabilitate themselves and gain marketable skills; training American Indians to start their own businesses; and finding private-sector jobs for single mothers in poor areas.

Like his father, Mr. Milbank gave generously to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and, like him, was chairman of the organization.

The Milbanks were one of the old families of Greenwich, Conn., and their practical, unostentatious approach to politics recalls the solid Republican tradition embodied by Senator Prescott Bush, father of former President George H. W. Bush. Mr. Milbank was as apt to get involved in state politics as he was to weigh in on national questions.

Part of the family’s wealth came from the investment of Mr. Milbank’s great-grandfather — the first Jeremiah and the first Milbank to settle in Greenwich — in the new concept of condensed milk, which led to what is now Borden Inc.

The first Jeremiah (for whom Milbank Avenue in Greenwich was named) called his son Joseph, and Joseph, in turn, named his son Jeremiah. Jeremiah Jr., who was named after this second Jeremiah, moved from Greenwich around 2000, first to Rye, N.Y., and then to Charlottesville.

Jeremiah Jr.’s father commuted between Greenwich and Manhattan on his 75-foot cruiser, which had a salon paneled in English pine. The family’s lifestyle included the best schools, debutante balls and charity galas, but the Milbanks were seldom purposefully in the news.

Fortune magazine described the Milbank clan as “one of the oldest, richest, most proper and least publicized families of the American business community.”

Jeremiah Milbank Jr. was born in Manhattan on March 24, 1920. He graduated from Yale and Harvard Business School, and served in the Naval Reserve in the Pacific during World War II. He then realized that “the best thing that could happen to me would be to work with my dad,” according to an interview in Greenwich Time in 1991.

He joined the International Center for the Disabled, which his father founded in 1917 as one of the first facilities anywhere to help rehabilitate people and reintegrate them into society.

It first helped soldiers wounded in World War I and estimates that it has since aided several million people.

The younger Jeremiah, who followed the family tradition of a career in investing, began to attend board meetings and found he liked philanthropy and had an aptitude for it. He became president of the center.

In 1985, the family split its philanthropy into two foundations.

The older JM Foundation gives to conservative causes, although Greenwich magazine in 1995 suggested that some programs, like the one for disadvantaged youth, might startle conservatives. Mr. Milbank also fought for passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, which conservatives tended to oppose.

The other foundation, the Milbank Foundation for Rehabilitation, gives to groups concerned with disabilities and medical research, among other things. Each dispenses about $1 million a year.

Mr. Milbank’s own career in private enterprise included the chairmanship of the Commercial Solvents Corporation, a diversified chemical company, and a seat on the board of Chase Manhattan Bank.

Mr. Milbank was married four times. His first wife, the former Andrea Hunter, died in 1982 after 35 years of marriage. A brief marriage to Carolyn Amory ended in divorce. His marriage to Rose Jackson Sheppard ended after seven years with her death in 1998.

He is survived by his fourth wife, the former Mary Gillett Rockefeller; and by the children from his first marriage: two sons, Jeremiah III, of Manhattan, who is president of the two family foundations, and Joseph H., of Charlottesville; two daughters, Victoria Whitney of Brookline, Mass., and Elizabeth Archer, who lives near Boston; and 10 grandchildren.

Mr. Milbank told Greenwich magazine that his priorities were “the underprivileged young and the disabled.” At an opera benefit, the magazine said, he told the opera lovers that his pet concerns trumped theirs.

“If we don’t heal the young walking wounded in our society, the audiences for the opera may be a bit thin,” he said.