Activist, politician Rose Kramer dies at 94

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

by Margie Hyslop

Staff Writer

Click here to enlarge this photo

Photo by Beverly Rezneck

Rose Kramer served two terms on the county school board and one on the County Council.

Rose C. Kramer, 94, a leading advocate for racial integration and liberal social change during two terms on the Montgomery County school board and one on the County Council, died March 3 at her home in Bethesda.

Mrs. Kramer continued to live on her own despite an acute case of shingles that left her with severe neuralgia, but her heart and lungs failed, said her daughter, Ellen Ross of Silver Spring.

She pushed at barriers from her first days on the school board in 1954, right after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down school segregation.

Mrs. Kramer took her colleagues to task for not moving quickly to end racial separation in the schools and create a fully integrated system.

The backlash included threatening telephone calls to her home from segregationists, Ross recalled.

During her years on the County Council from 1966 through 1970, Mrs. Kramer, a Democrat, successfully pushed for the passage of the county’s fair housing and accommodations laws and for the purchase of property to provide low-cost housing for the elderly.

County Councilwoman Marilyn J. Praisner (D-Dist. 4) of Calverton called Mrs. Kramer ‘‘a friend and mentor” on Tuesday, and said the county owes her ‘‘a great deal of gratitude” for her leadership and commitment.

In an interview last year with JCA Today, a publication of the Jewish Council for the Aging, Mrs. Kramer credited her parents, Harry and Nettie Cohen who emigrated from Russia, for cultivating her social conscience.

‘‘’Remember, no fur coats until you’ve taken care of the poor,’” Mrs. Kramer recalled her father, an East Capitol Street dry cleaner, telling her.

‘‘She was a great gal,” said Montgomery’s first and only Republican county executive, James P. Gleason, who served with Mrs. Kramer on the County Council and, earlier, on the Metro transit board.

Mrs. Kramer’s refusal to bow to Democratic pressure helped elect Mr. Gleason to the council and end a 43-day stalemate in 1968 during which the council, divided between Republicans and Democrats, failed to name a replacement for David Scull, a Republican who had died in office.

Mrs. Kramer continued to support political and cultural organizations through donations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Mrs. Kramer was born in Washington, D.C., graduated from Eastern High School and earned a bachelor’s degree from Wilson Teacher’s College and a master’s degree in English from the Catholic University of America.

She taught elementary school in Washington for 10 years and married government accountant Harold H. Kramer in 1937.

The Kramers settled in Silver Spring and raised four children, who survive her: Jack C. Cohen of Bethesda; Madelyn Schaefer of Edgewater; Kathye Kramer of San Diego; David Kramer of Durango, Colo.; and Ross. She is also survived by her brother, Jack C. Cohen of Bethesda.

Her husband died in 2000.

Mrs. Kramer is also survived by six grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

A remembrance celebration is being planned for March 26.