[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 51 (Wednesday, March 25, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H4004]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN MEMORY OF CHRISTINE SARBANES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Griffith). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, in 1966, I was elected to the Maryland State 
Senate. I was a few months out of Georgetown Law School. And elected at 
the same time was an extraordinary representative of our State. He was 
elected to the House of Delegates.
  In 1970, he was elected to the Congress of the United States and 
served in the Congress until 1976. In 1976, the citizens of our State 
elected him to the United States Senate. Paul Sarbanes retired 2 years 
ago as the longest-serving member of the United States Senate in the 
history of our State.
  His partner in all of those efforts was an extraordinary woman. Her 
name was Christine. She was born in England. She was an extraordinary 
individual. Paul Sarbanes was a great intellect. Christine matched his 
intellect. Paul Sarbanes was a person of extraordinary integrity, and 
his partner, Christine, matched that integrity.
  Paul Sarbanes was a person of great depth and great compassion, 
mirrored by his wife, Christine.
  Christine Sarbanes, the mother of our colleague, John Sarbanes, who 
represents the district that his father once represented. Christine 
Sarbanes passed away this weekend. Christine was a loving friend and 
partner to her husband for nearly half a century, and those of us who 
were active with her husband in the public sphere and got to know her 
well and got to be her friend were blessed by that relationship.
  She took the partnership with Paul very seriously. From the days when 
she and Paul knocked on hundreds of doors each afternoon to get him 
elected to the House of Delegates to the days when she acted as Senator 
Sarbanes's most trusted adviser. Like her husband, Christine possessed, 
as I have said, tremendous political savvy, deep intelligence and a 
love of learning.
  In fact, she once said that she and Paul bought their house because 
it was within walking distance of a library. No one was surprised at 
that criteria for purchasing a home.
  Christine passed that love of learning to generations of students as 
a teacher of Latin, Greek, and French.

                              {time}  1715

  Her son reflects that deep intellect as he serves the constituents of 
the Third Congressional District of Maryland.
  As a tireless worker for UNICEF, Christine served the international 
community. Among the many other charities she served, Christine took up 
the fight for children around the world.
  So today, Mr. Speaker, we mourn the loss of an honored teacher, wise 
counselor, passionate advocate, and her family mourns the loss of an 
irreplaceable mother and wife.
  I lost my wife Judy 12 years ago. So I know something of the pain 
that Senator Sarbanes is experiencing. He's one of my closest friends. 
We've been involved in politics for over four decades together, but I 
also know that love outlasts grief. As Oscar Wilde said, ``Where there 
is sorrow, there is sacred ground.''
  As long as her loved ones live--her grandchildren will survive for a 
long period of time--their memories of the wife, their mother, their 
grandmother, will be sacred to them. Something of her will live on, on 
the sacred ground of memory, as long as those memories last.
  I know that all the Members of this House in which Paul Sarbanes and 
Christine, although not elected, served so ably for 6 years, and the 
colleagues of his in the United States Senate who grew to know 
Christine as well as they knew Paul and respected her and loved her as 
they loved Paul, I know they share in his grief, in John Sarbanes's 
grief, in his brother's grief, and their grandchildren's grief.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I know that the House joins me in expressing our 
deep regrets and that our prayers and sympathy are with the Sarbanes 
family, a family of immigrants, that came to this country and have made 
it better, like so many others. Paul Sarbanes still lives, still 
serves. Christine is gone, but her memory is not. We honor her this 
evening.

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