Tuesday, October 17, 2006
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 EditorHarald 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.
In 1939, he returned to study in his native city but in 1942 was arrested by the Stalin regime, sentenced to a labor camp and sent to the Finnish front, where he was captured by the Finns. Because of his German name, he was handed over to the Germans, where he was drafted into the German army.
After World War II, he left Europe and moved to New York and then Monterey, Calif. He became a master sergeant in the Army Reserves and began teaching Russian at the Army Language School (now the Defense Language Institute) in Monterey. He also was put in charge of daily Russian-language news broadcasts. He moved to the Washington area in 1958, working briefly for the Voice of America before joining the USIA.
Apart from work, he enjoyed researching his genealogy at the Library of Congress and reading Russian history and works of world culture and religion. He also enjoyed overseas travel and growing vegetables and herbs at his home in Kensington.
Survivors include his wife of 60 years, Olga Lindes of Kensington; two children, Nina Willett of Ocean Pines, Md., and Hal Lindes, a guitarist in the rock group Dire Straits, of Los Angeles; and seven grandchildren.
Mitzi RappTown GardenerMitzi Rapp, 79, who helped maintain the town of Garrett Park as an arboretum, died of renal failure Oct. 11 at her home in Garrett Park.
Mrs. Rapp was among a number of people who kept the Montgomery County town shady and well preserved, said Barbara Shidler, the chairman of the committee that launched the arboretum in 1978.
"She and I grew little [tree] seedlings in our yards until they were big enough to go on the street," Shidler said. "It was a lot of work. We read catalogues for plants that we couldn't get from nurseries. She was a keen gardener" who found a sunny spot for a vegetable garden, in addition to shade-loving plants such as dwarf evergreens and hostas. She also grew flowering plants such as rhododendrons and azaleas and built a small pool in her yard, Shidler said. The pair briefly set themselves up in business as the Over the Hill Landscapers, but "we weren't challenging any professionals," Shidler said.
Born in Baltimore, Mrs. Rapp attended the former Mount St. Agnes College, now part of Loyola College in Maryland. She worked as an X-ray technician at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Decades later, after raising her children, she graduated from the University of Maryland with honors.
She was past president of the Mason Dixon English Cocker Spaniel Club and received numerous awards for rescuing dogs and for her commitment to animal welfare.
Her husband, Herbert J. Rapp, died in 1981.
Survivors include four children, Barbara Roberts of Oneonta, N.Y., Margaret Soltan and Brian Rapp, both of Garrett Park, and Frances Eby of Gaithersburg; a sister, Ronnie Loiederman of Bethesda; and three grandchildren.