Obituaries
Tuesday, October 17, 2006; Page B07
Rena Driver HarrisPublic Health Nurse
Rena Driver Harris, 95, who broke racial barriers as nurse with the D.C. Department of Health in the 1940s and throughout her career, died of lung cancer Oct. 11 at her home in Washington.
Mrs. Harris, a District resident for more than 60 years, started in 1941 as a public health nurse who visited the sick in their homes. During her 32-year career, she was the first African American assistant chief with the department's division of public health nursing and the first African American chief of nurses for the Community Health and Hospital Administration-South.
Mrs. Harris also organized the first pediatric nurse practitioner program for public health nurses in the District.
She was born in Gloucester County, Va., the youngest of seven children. At 12, after her mother's death, she moved to Philadelphia to live with a sister. She received a nursing diploma from the Harlem School of Nursing in New York and worked at Harlem Hospital. She advanced through the ranks from staff nurse to supervisor of gynecological services. In 1941, she married and moved to Washington.
While working for the D.C. government, she received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in nursing in the mid-1960s from Catholic University. She was a member of Sigma Theta Tau national honor society.
She was a member of Berean Baptist Church, where she served as a trustee and deaconess. She was a lifetime member of the Alpha Chapter of Chi Eta Phi Society and served in leadership positions and chaired several committees. She was honored as Soror of the Year by the chapter in 1988 and was subsequently nominated as Soror of the Year at the national level. She was twice elected a national trustee of the sorority.
Mrs. Harris also was a member of Cascades of Washington social club, NAACP, D.C. Nurses Association, Harlem Hospital Alumni Association, Catholic University Alumni Association, Elegant Twelve Pinochle Club and RPW Bridge Club.
Her husband, Willie L. "Bucky" Harris, died in 1960.
Survivors include a daughter, Cynthia Harris of Washington.
Harald LindesMagazine Editor
Harald Lindes, 85, former chief editor of the U.S. Information Agency's Russian-language magazine Amerika, died Oct. 11 at the Deer's Head Hospital Center in Salisbury, Md. He had cancer of the esophagus.
Mr. Lindes worked for the USIA for 21 years, starting under broadcaster Edward R. Murrow during the Kennedy administration. Mr. Lindes retired in 1980, then worked for about five years as a personal assistant to cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the former director of the National Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Lindes was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. When he was 15, his father was arrested and executed, and his family was exiled to Siberia.
