Edward Wilson; Ex-Chairman of Chicago’s Wilson & Co.

Edward Foss Wilson, a retired board chairman and president of Wilson & Co., is dead of cancer at 89.

He died Saturday at Sibley Memorial Hospital. Wilson, who lived in White Post, Va., became one of the country’s youngest corporate presidents in 1934 when he took the helm of the Chicago meatpacking company founded by his father.

It was taking in $180 million a year in revenue at the time and by 1953, when Wilson became chairman of the company, he had built it into an $800-million-a-year entity with diversified product lines, including sporting goods and pharmaceuticals. He was also active in various Chicago charities.

Wilson, a native of Chicago, graduated from Princeton University in 1926.

Wilson left the company as chairman in 1956. He was named an assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare a year later. He also served in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Wilson & Co. eventually was broken up and sold.