UPDATED at 2:30 p.m. Thursday to include visitation and funeral information.

When Lucianna Gladney Ross was interviewed by the Post-Dispatch in 2001, she knew how she'd be remembered.

"My son asked me one time, back in the '60s, 'Mother, why do you bother with Kimmswick? It's just a run-down town.' I said, 'When they write my obituary, Kimmswick is the first thing they'll say.' "

Ms. Gladney Ross, an heiress to part of the 7Up fortune, was the force behind restoration of the little Jefferson County town along the Mississippi River. She died Tuesday (Jan. 24, 2012) at her St. Louis home after a lingering illness. She was 96.

Her fondness for Kimmswick began as a child growing up in St. Louis. In the Post-Dispatch interview, she talked of boarding a train at the Tower Grove Station to ride to Kimmswick with her family and pets for vacations at the family's summer home. Her father, Frank Gladney, was a lawyer and one of three founders of the 7Up Co.

She began buying property in Kimmswick in the 1960s. She leased buildings to shopkeepers and helped them redevelop the property, prompting a revival in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Mom felt a lot of the houses had real integrity to them and she didn't want them to fall down," said her daughter, Helen Ross of McLean, Va.

Ms. Gladney Ross began another project in 1970 that "literally saved the city of Kimmswick," according to a history posted on the city's website. Old log buildings from surrounding areas were taken down and re-assembled in Kimmswick.

Ms. Gladney Ross, a graduate of the former Mary Institute in St. Louis and of Smith College in Northampton, Mass., worked briefly as a society reporter at the Post-Dispatch. She married Walter Ross, a fellow reporter. They later divorced.

Ms. Gladney Ross was active on local boards, including the St. Louis Art Museum. She also supported Planned Parenthood and the Cradle, an adoption agency in Evanston, Ill., where she adopted her two daughters.

A visitation for Ms. Gladney Ross is scheduled from 4 to 8 p.m. Monday at the Alexander - White - Mullen Funeral Home at 11101 St. Charles Rock Road in St. Ann. A funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the funeral home. 

In addition to her daughter, Helen Ross, she is survived by another daughter, Lucy Natkiel of Hill, N.H.; a son, John Franklin Ross of Richmond Heights; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.