Gwill Linderme York Newman (1932–2010), a native Clevelander, graduated first in her class at Laurel School and then attended Vassar College (A.B., 1954) and the Sorbonne. She married stockbroker Scott York and began actively volunteering. As president of the Junior League of Cleveland in the late 1960s, she changed the membership requirements to include qualified women of all races and religions and worked for integration of the league’s national conferences. She served as a trustee of United Way Services and president of the Cleveland Music School Settlement, and co-founded the Playhouse Square Association. In 1975, she chaired the International Women’s Year gathering in Cleveland, which attracted some 50,000 attendees.

After a divorce, she married Bruce Newman, executive director of the Chicago Community Trust. The 1982 death of her 22-year-old son from paranoid schizophrenia led her to advocate for the treatment and support of people with mental and neurological illnesses. She became president and later chair of the Brain Research Foundation in Chicago, and the first president of the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.