Obituary of Arline Berry Schramm

Arline Schramm passed away on February 25, 2015 in Fairfax, Virginia at age 98. She was born in Monte Vista, a small friendly farming town in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado, on January 4, 1917 to Burton and Maude (Robbins) Berry, and had one brother, Joseph Berry. She grew up in a happy extended family. Her dad was a cement contractor and single-handedly built houses. The family moved to Denver in 1927 and during the Depression they lived in one of the houses he built while finishing construction. Arline graduated from South High School in 1935. She was close to her brother, Joe (1911 to 1976) and sister-in-law, Iris. She was especially close to Iris, who she considered a great friend. Arline traveled a lot when young and as an adult. She went to New York City for the 1939 World’s Fair by bus that included stops in Chicago and Washington, DC., and made trips west as far as California. She went to business school when not working. She had various jobs including at Continental Paper Company and with Gates Rubber Company in Denver. She moved to Chicago with a girlfriend for a short period just after the war to “seek her fortune” and worked at the Stevens Hotel (which later became a Hilton Hotel), then came back to Denver. She took a civil service exam and was offered a job in Rifle, Colorado at the Bureau of Mines Anvil Points oil shale plant in 1947. Lester Schramm (a chemical engineer at the oil shale plant) was the person who met her when she arrived in Rifle at the train station. Both of them lived at the Winchester Hotel before marrying June 25, 1949. They had three children, moving around a lot in the West for a few years before settling in Arlington, Virginia. After being a stay at home mother while her children were very young, she went back to work and completed her career as a secretary at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Her husband Lester passed away in 2000. She is survived by her three children, Stephen Schramm (Ft. Collins, CO), Linda Schramm (Arlington, VA), and Mark Schramm (Los Angeles, CA). Arline loved her family more than anything. She was a kind, generous and ever-cheerful person from childhood through her last days. Never angry and well-appreciated for her gentle and humorous nature, she was a New York Yankees fan for close to 90 years. A private funeral was held March 2, 2015.