Ann O. Hamilton

Ann Oppenheimer Hamilton was born in San Antonio, Texas, on December 30, 1936, to Dan Oppenheimer and Miriam (Mimi) Rabe Oppenheimer. Tragically, Mimi died in 1937 when Ann was just six months old from a lung infection only shortly before penicillin was widely available. Ann was raised by her beloved father, her doting grandmothers, and her Nanny, Myrtle Lee. When she was eight years old her father married Gloria Rosenthal Oppenheimer who brought Ann a glamorous sister, Jill. They both attended St. Mary’s Hall School for Girls in San Antonio until their parents decided that Ann needed more exposure to boys. She attended high school at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, in Austin, Texas.

Eager to explore the world, Ann was off to Wellesley College where she graduated with High Honors in Economics in 1958. Then to London where she earned a Masters of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and had the time of her life. Ann referred to her time in London as where she did 90% of her growing up and throughout her life she named London as her favorite city in the world.

In 1961, when President Kennedy called on Americans to serve their country, Ann moved to Washington, D.C. where she felt privileged to be part of a small group working on the first phase of planning, designing, and enacting a “Peace Corps.” In 1964, Sargent Shriver took Ann with him to create the War on Poverty following Kennedy’s assassination. Once again she felt privileged to be on the ground floor of designing a major government program. She went to what was then the Budget Bureau (now OMB) to work on foreign aid. There Ann met and married Ed Hamilton with whom she had three children, Vicky and Dan in 1967, and Rachel in 1969. They divorced several years later.

In 1970, Ann joined the World Bank, where she spent the next 27 years, working on India (mostly), Indonesia, social sectors (health, education, population, Women in Development, poverty alleviation, etc.), and other fascinating places (Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal). One of the first women to serve at the level of Division Chief, Ann helped to shape large-scale infrastructure and social projects while acting as “Earth Mother” for a network of colleagues. She left the bank in 1995.

Ann then went to Georgetown Law School, for no reason other than she’d always wanted to. She graduated in 1999 and was admitted to the DC and Maryland bars. Since then, Ann has been busily retired, deeply engaged as a neighborhood activist in Cleveland Park, an advocate for reproductive choice and Planned Parenthood, a traveler, a zealous theater- and concert-goer and supporter. She served on many Boards, including Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, the Arena Stage, and the Cleveland Park Citizens Association.

She was, most of all, dedicated to her family. She took her children and grandchildren on wonderful trips around the world throughout their lives. She was an enthusiastic supporter of her family’s pursuits, attending plays, recitals, basketball games, and arriving at every graduation obscenely early in order to get the very best seats. Throughout her life Ann maintained an incredible set of lifelong friends, friends from every stop in her life —and she never stopped making new friends. She combined great wit, great intelligence, genuine warmth, and a never-ending interest and engagement in the lives of her friends and family. She loved us well.