He donated money to dig wells in drought-stricken West Africa and provided seminary training in the Philippines.
[2] In the early 1950s, Harry G. John, a devout Catholic, utilized his inheritance - Miller stock valued at $14 million - to found the De Rance Foundation, which he named after Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rance, the 17th century abbot of the monastery at La Trappe, France.
In 1972, Philip Morris through the broker Kidder Peabody, bought Miller Brewing, resulting in the value of John's stock soaring to $97 million overnight.
Harry John was permanently removed from the De Rance board;[4] he divorced Erica, and moved to Pacific Palisades, California where he resided for the next six years, returning to Milwaukee in 1992.
Heart of the Nation, the Catholic media ministry of Santa Fe Communications, is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In 1985, John prepared a legal document that would authorize the transfer of De Rance's assets to another organization he had created, Southern Cross, Inc., upon his death.