Elinor Ann Crawford Sterne

Elinor was the daughter of a Southern Baptist minister, Charles Jefferson Crawford, and his wife, Vida Sanders Crawford, long-time church organist and piano teacher. She grew up surrounded by music which she loved throughout her life. As a young woman, she was part of a trio called The Trio. She loved it all—classical, opera, Dixieland and was especially proud of her brother, Paul, a professional trombonist in New Orleans for 50 years, he traveled and played with Louis Armstrong and others, and significantly established the Jazz Archives at Tulane University.

After graduating from high school, she spent a year at Judson College in Marion, Alabama. Afterwards she transferred to renowned Berea College in Kentucky for low-income students, which became a highlight of her life. After graduating with a degree in English she decided to become a social worker and, so, enrolled for a graduate degree at the Richmond College of Social Work in Richmond, Virginia.

As part of her training she took a job with the State of Georgia’s new social work division and moved to Albany, Georgia. In between working with disadvantaged families in rural Georgia she decided to learn to play tennis. While she never did, she went occasionally to Albany’s public tennis courts where she flirted with a young lawyer, Edwin Sterne who, as it happends, was a prolific tennis player. After two months they married and later had two children, Ellin and Pamela. Elinor remained involved with her calling by working with Albany’s first Head Start program. In addition, she and her husband became prominent opponents of segregation and worked hard to stop their culture’s virulent racism.

In 1967, she moved with her family to Birmingham where Edwin joined the faculty at the Cumberland School of Law. She became a medical social worker at UAB for a time.

Elinor Sterne is preceded in death by her husband, her mother and father, her sister, Mary Foster, her brothers, Carroll, Paul, Charles, and John, sisters-in-law June and Mary, and by her granddaughter, Leigh Anna Jimmerson.

She is survived by her children, her sons-in-law, Al Jimmerson and Larry Watts, her grandchildren, Whitney Detwiler, John King and Blair King, her great grandson, Sam Sparrow, her sister-in-law, Dorothy Crawford, and numerous nieces and nephews. As well, her second great grandchild will be born in February 2019.

Visitation will be Friday, September 7, 10:00-11:00. Funeral at 11:00 with a reception to follow. Johns-Ridout Valley Chapel, Homewood, AL. Burial Crown Hill Cemetery, Albany, Georgia, Saturday, September 8, 2:00 PM.