Catherine F. Shouse; Founder, Ex-Head of Wolf Trap Farm Park

Catherine Filene Shouse, the strong-willed philanthropist who almost single-handedly created Wolf Trap Farm Park outside Washington, D.C., and dominated its operations for two decades, has died. She was 98.

Mrs. Shouse died Wednesday of a heart ailment at her home in Naples, Fla.

She was a daughter of an owner of Filene’s Department Store in Boston and the granddaughter of a founder of the Boston Symphony. An able fund-raiser, Mrs. Shouse designed Wolf Trap as the only national park for the performing arts and remained at its helm long after it was founded in 1966. When the theater burned in 1982, she helped it rise from the ashes.

Mrs. Shouse began the complex when she donated 100 acres of her scenic Vienna, Va., farm and more than $2 million for a soaring open-air theater. The complex later was to include the smaller Barns of Wolf Trap, which is used year-round for performances and meetings.

Inaugurated by the National Park Service in 1971 with a concert featuring pianist Van Cliburn, the Filene Center at Wolf Trap added a new element to the country’s arts institutions.

Known as Kay, Mrs. Shouse attended Wheaton College and became the first woman to receive a master’s degree in education from Harvard University.

During World War I, she worked as an assistant to the chief of the women’s division of the U.S. Employment Service. In 1920, she published a groundbreaking book on careers for women, and later founded the Institute of Women’s Professional Relations.

Her first marriage ended in divorce and in 1932, she married Jouett Shouse. A former newspaperman, lawyer and congressman, he served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee and assistant secretary of the Treasury. He died in 1967.