[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 18417]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO DR. ESTELLE R. RAMEY

 Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, on September 8, our Nation lost a 
great American and my husband and I lost a wonderful friend of over 20 
years. Dr. Estelle R. Ramey was a respected endocrinologist, 
physiologist, and feminist. She was a woman of great wit and wisdom who 
fought gender discrimination in the scientific professions and in the 
conduct of medical research. Dr. Ramey died of Alzheimer's disease at 
the age of 89.
  Estelle Rubin Ramey was born in Detroit and raised in New York City. 
Her mother, a wise but impoverished and illiterate immigrant, insisted 
that her daughter be educated. At the age of 15 in the midst of the 
Great Depression, Dr. Ramey was able to attend Brooklyn College for the 
price of a library card. Ignoring the gender restrictions of his time, 
one of her professors made it possible for Estelle to have the 
opportunity to teach chemistry at the new Queens College while working 
for her master's in chemistry at Columbia. While at Columbia she met 
her husband, James Ramey, who was a student at the law school. Their 
love affair lasted for over 65 years. Estelle, with her trademark wit 
and self-deprecation, would attribute their successful marriage to 
never once having had a meaningful conversation.
  Dr. Ramey earned her doctorate in physiology and biophysics at the 
University of Chicago and upon returning to Washington, she became a 
faculty member at Georgetown Medical School where she taught for over 
35 years. Her decades of research in endocrinology brought her 
accolades and recognition in the world of medicine, while her ability 
to express the cause for gender equity with honesty and a rapier wit 
made her a popular speaker, and eminently quotable. However, as it was 
stated so well in her September 10 obituary in the Washington Post, 
``Her wit was rooted in statistics, scientific research and personal 
experience with discrimination.'' In 1971, she was a founder and second 
president of the Association for Women in Science, an organization 
dedicated to achieving equity and full participation for women in 
science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
  Estelle was known to all of us who loved her as Stelle, and at 
Georgetown Medical School as ``La Belle Estelle.'' These endearing 
nicknames are a testament to her boundless humanity. She and her 
husband Jim felt very strongly about how little, if anything, it took 
to extend a helping hand to someone else. She wrote in a book entitled 
``Letters to our Grandchildren'': ``If I could leave you with any 
advice, it would be to speak words of caring not only to those closest 
to you, to all the hungry ears you encounter on your journey through a 
cold world. Stop on the mountain climb to bring along all those less 
lucky, less agile or well endowed. It will make the view even more 
beautiful when you get to the top. For my own epitaph, I ask that it 
be: `I loved and was loved and all the rest was background music.'''
  Dr. Ramey leaves her husband Jim and two children: attorney Drucilla 
Stender Ramey of New York and James Ramey of Bethesda, MD, a physician. 
Estelle Ramey will be missed greatly by those of us who had the benefit 
of her warmth and friendship, and she will be remembered for her 
dedication to her family, to science and her profession, and to all 
women.

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