Lorraine T. Green

Lorraine Bertina Thomas Green, was a retired educator who taught home economics and served in various other positions, including department head at Forest Park High School. She died peacefully in her sleep on August 15, 2022. After retiring from the Baltimore City School system in 1983, Mrs. Green became a licensed realtor with the Otis Warren Group throughout the 1980s. She also worked for the predecessor organization to the Black Educational Scholarship trust which was at the time a satellite initiative of the Black Student Fund. She recruited many African American students to several of the local independent schools. She also served as the first Diversity Coordinator at Roland Park Country School from 1989 - 1998. A native of Baltimore, MD and a longtime resident of the Ashburton neighborhood, she was the first of 6 children from the union of Beulah Regustas Thomas and Earl Thomas. Mrs. Green was born on Edmonson Avenue and lived as a child and teenager in Wilson Park. She died at the age of 92 from old age, at her home in Silver, Spring MD. Prior to moving to the DC area, she lived at the Atrium Village in Owings Mills, MD and prior to that at Elkridge Estates in Baltimore City. As a young person, Mrs. Green enjoyed sewing, cooking, and spending time with friends and family. She was a Girl Scout and also attended Douglass Memorial Community Church in downtown Baltimore. Mrs. Green was a 1949 graduate of Dunbar High School and a 1953 graduate of Morgan State College, where she majored in home economics. She also attended graduate classes at Goucher College. Over her 30-year teaching career, she taught or served as an administrator at several local schools including Booker T. Washington and Harlem Park Elementary School where she integrated the faculty as one of the first black teachers. She also taught at Pimlico Junior High School, Lemell Junior High School, and Northwestern High School and served as the Curriculum Coordinator at Lakeland Elementary and Middle School. She met the late Sampson Green, Jr. in 1952 at the main US Post Office in Baltimore on Fayette Street, where she was working part-time between semesters at school, sorting mail. She loved to recall the story of Green, as she called him, bringing her a dozen roses on Christmas Day and her grandmother predicting that she would marry him based on this romantic action. They were married on August 8, 1954, at the Wilson Park home where she lived with her parents. Mrs. Green lived on Wabash Avenue in Northwest Baltimore for more than 30 years and raised her children there. She and her husband, who was a civil rights activist, often held organizing meetings in their home. She was also a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Walbrook Junction for more than 40 years, where she served as a Deacon. She was a lifetime member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Mrs. Green and her husband regularly attended Alpha Kappa Alpha social events and they traveled extensively with their young children including trips to Canada, Bermuda, and Jamaica. In retirement, she also traveled on numerous cruises throughout the Caribbean with friends and family members. In her 60s she traveled to Egypt on a group trip organized by her sorority. She was known for entertaining neighbors and colleagues in her home and hosting festive dinners, parties, and even weddings. “My mother was worldly, elegant, and always well dressed. She was sociable and made friends easily even in her senior years and could strike up a conversation with anyone, always having something interesting or witty to comment on.” said her daughter, Lisa Green Hall, an investment professional for a private equity firm, who resides in Washington, DC. Mrs. Green participated in countless community organizations including the Baltimore Chapter of the Women’s League of Voters and as a member of the board of Sojourner Douglass College. She was also a member of Jack and Jill of America. Mrs. Green enjoyed cards and was a founding member of a bridge club known as Les Filles de Mercredi, which met for dinner and competitive matches for more than 50 years. She was a founding member of the Baltimore Chapter of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASALH). She was skilled at needlepoint and often gifted intricate pieces to friends and family. And she volunteered as an usher at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Music for Youth program for elementary school children. In addition to her daughter, she is survived by her grand-daughters Alice Warren of Washington Heights, NY, and Leah Hall, of Washington, DC, her sister Deborah McCrimmon of Owings Mills, MD, her sister Brenda Thompson of Millersville, MD, her sister-in-law Sarah Thomas of Randallstown, MD, and her sister-in-law Fannie Thomas of Baltimore City, along with a host of nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband of 38 years, her daughter Cynthia Green, her mother, her father, her sister Earline Pride, and brothers, Irving Thomas and Edward “Eddie” Thomas.

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Lorraine T. Green

June 10, 1930 - August 15, 2022