Activist Flora Crater dies at 94

Eulogy of Flora Crater

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 689 - commending Flora Crater

Flora Crater ran for lieutenant governor in 1973 as an independent candidate.

Flora Marina Trimmer Crater was born in an era of male-only voting and racial segregation. Before her death Sunday at age 94, she was able to vote for a woman for president in a national primary and help elect the first black president.

Political analysts and advocates yesterday called her a women's-rights pioneer and a trailblazer.

"She was far ahead of her time in that sphere," said Larry J. Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.

Mrs. Crater ran for lieutenant governor in 1973 as an independent candidate "and accumulated a remarkable vote total," Sabato said. "Her 10½ percent came out of the Democratic nominee's hide. She attracted a lot of women -- and some men who cared about them -- who wanted to send a message to the General Assembly" about the support for laws guaranteeing equal treatment of women.

She also sought the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1978.

Mrs. Crater led lobbyists known as Crater's Raiders who visited Congress in 1972 to urge support for the Equal Rights Amendment. They passed out pink paper flowers as reminders of the female vote.

In 1997, the General Assembly honored Mrs. Crater with a resolution commending her for her lifetime of work empowering women and minorities. Along with former Del. L. Karen Darner, D-Arlington, and Leslie L. Byrne, a former delegate, state senator and U.S. representative, Mrs. Crater tried unsuccessfully to get the assembly to endorse the ERA.

"I think we still need it, but what we have to do is convince people that we need it," Mrs. Crater said in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 2000. "To me the ERA is really a traditional kind of right. Who's going to fight against equality? But the things they made out of it -- gee."

Mrs. Crater was still lobbying for the Equal Rights Amendment on Capitol Hill and in Richmond at the time of the 2000 interview.

"We keep continuing the fight," she said. "This isn't symbolic, either. You've got to remember that 35 states ratified it."

Examples of her ERA lobbying literature are included in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

Mrs. Crater was founder and editor of the annual "Almanac of Virginia Politics" from 1977 to 2003, published by her Falls Church-based Woman Activist Fund Inc. The cover design included a border of her trademark flowers.

"The almanac was a valuable resource," said Byrne, who was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2005. "Flora was a trailblazer for women in Virginia and continued to work hard as a champion for all of us. I don't think we'll ever see someone like her ever again."

A native of Costa Rica, Mrs. Crater primarily grew up in Virginia's Orange County but also lived in Cuba, New York City and the District of Columbia. More recently, she lived in Falls Church in Northern Virginia. She was the widow of Walter James Crater, who died in 1982.

Her family's home in Orange, "Wild Beauty," was destroyed by fire in 1929, when she was a teenager. In 2004 and 2005, she had a similar house built at the site of the original foundation and steps.

Survivors include a daughter, Vivian Gray of Hockessin, Del.; sons Walter Crater Jr. of Martinsburg, W.Va., and Horace Crater of LaVergne, Tenn.; and four grandchildren.

A funeral is planned for Thursday at 2 p.m. at Preddy Funeral Home in Orange, with burial to follow in the family cemetery.