[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 14 (Wednesday, February 8, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E85-E86]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF ROSE NADER

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 8, 2006

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life of Rose Nader, who 
at age 99 died on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 of congestive heart 
failure. Mrs. Nader was both tender and tenacious. She was a woman who 
taught her children the importance of service to their community, a 
love of the environment and concern for the well being of others. As 
you can see, Mrs. Nader indeed lived an honorable life.
  David Halberstam captured her well when he said, ``I thought she was 
a remarkble person who lived a remarkable life, going literally from 
one century to another.''
  She was strong, loving, hard-working and modest. All of the virtues 
were hers. I used to ponder how much she and her husband had seen in 
their lives for it was a great American story. They had come here in 
the twenties with little more than their hopes and their capacity for 
hard work, and in just one generation they had seen their own children 
prosper--enriching what was around them and being enriched at the same 
time.
  What I will remember is her kindness to our family over the years, 
her sense of obligation to others, and a belief that citizenship 
demanded a daily commitment.
  And of course her modesty, in the mid-sixties, back when Life 
Magazine was still powerful, the editors put Ralph on the cover. My 
mother, thrilled by this, immediately called Rose to tell her.
  ``Yes,'' said Mrs. Nader, ``that's nice. I must get out and get a 
copy.'' We all loved that, the ``a copy'' reference.
  I would also like to include a reprint of an article written by 
Albert Bernstein that appeared in the Washington Post on January 26, 
2006:

       Mrs. Nader, who jousted with politicians and complacency as 
     a small-town activist and was the mother of consumer advocate 
     Ralph Nader.
       Mrs. Nader developed a certain civic renown in 1955 when 
     she confronted Sen. Prescott Bush (R-Conn.), the father and 
     grandfather of presidents. When Senator Bush visited Winsted, 
     following a catastrophic flood, he was approached by Mrs. 
     Nader at a public gathering public gathering. When he offered 
     his hand in an obligatory fashion, Mrs. Nader latched on and 
     refused to free him until he promised to help a dry-dam 
     proposal move forward. This was fulfilled.
       Later, she advocated building a community center for 
     children, forming a speakers club that would bring worldly 
     lecturers to the town, and expanding and preserving a local 
     hospital.
       At home, she could be implacable, particularly about food. 
     She emphasized homemade items over packaged goods whose 
     contents she found bewildering. She prohibited hot dogs and 
     later beef because of the presence of a growth-stimulating 
     hormone linked to cancer.
       She sweetened food with honey, not sugar, and pushed her 
     children to eat chickpeas instead of candy bars on their way 
     to school. When news of this was publicized during Ralph 
     Nader's rise to prominence, the Wall Street Journal editorial 
     page likened his mother to a Puritan.
       This characterization was laughed at by her children, even 
     as they promoted the story involving her distrustful 
     relationship with chocolate.
       Mrs. Nader later said: ``When the children convinced me 
     that chocolate-frosted birthday cakes were what all the other 
     children wanted, I frosted the cake, but after the candles 
     were blown out and before they cut into the cake, I removed 
     the frosting. Some people might say I was severe, but it 
     became a family joke.''
       She later wrote a cookbook.
       Rose Bouziane was born in Zahle, Lebanon, on Feb. 7, 1906, 
     to a sheep broker and a teacher. She taught high school 
     French and Arabic before her marriage in 1925 to businessman 
     Nathra Nader.
       After immigrating to the United States, they settled in 
     Connecticut, where his Main Street bakery-restaurant-general 
     store in Winsted, in the northwestern corner of the state, 
     became a redoubt for residents bemoaning actions or inactions 
     at the town hall.
       On occasion, Mrs. Nader used newspaper opinion pages to 
     express her views.
       Writing in the New York Times in 1982, she denounced the 
     use of ``credibility phrases,'' such as ``frankly,'' ``to 
     tell you the truth'' and ``in all honesty,'' that sometimes 
     preceded a political statement or sales pitch. They gave her 
     ``the pervasive feeling that distrust is so widespread that 
     people need to use such language to be believed.''
       In another editorial, she embraced mass mailings from issue 
     groups that are commonly dismissed as ``junk mail.'' She 
     wrote that they often come from people ``who care about their 
     times.''
       Her husband died in 1991. A son, Shafeek Nader, died in 
     1986.
       Besides Ralph Nader of Washington, survivors include two 
     daughters, Claire Nader of Washington and Winsted and Laura 
     Nader of Berkeley, Calif.; a sister; three grandchildren; and 
     three great-grandchildren.
       Ralph Nader once said his mother ``took us out in the yard 
     one day and asked us if we knew the price of eggs, of apples, 
     of bananas. Then she asked us to put a price on clean air, 
     the sunshine, the song of birds--and we were stunned.''

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