This online memorial was created in loving memory of Adelaide Rackemann, whose life story is told throughout this memorial website. Please sign Adelaide's guest book and let us know you came to visit.

Excerpted from Fred Rasmussen’s obituary in The Baltimore Sun

Adelaide C. Rackemann, a former librarian who was also a poet, conservationist, horticulturist, bird watcher and a freelance writer, died Sunday at Maryland Shock Trauma Center after suffering a fall at her Bare Hills home. She was 86.

Adelaide Hardcastle Crawley, the daughter of a lawyer and a homemaker, was born in New York City and raised in Port Washington, N.Y.

After graduating from Port Washington High School in 1941, she earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Wellesley College in 1945.

Adelaide came to Baltimore in 1951 to work as a librarian at the Enoch Pratt Free Library after earning a master's degree in library science from Columbia University.

In 1957, she married Francis Minot Rackemann Jr., an Evening Sun reporter who later became the newspaper's garden columnist and feature writer.

Four years later, the couple moved to a three-story clapboard house that was built in the 1880s on Lake Roland's south shore, in a hilly wooded area that borders Robert E. Lee Park.

They named their home Copper Hill Farm, and through the years they raised Sicilian donkeys, goats, chickens and vegetables.

In addition to being a prolific contributor to The Evening Sun'sop-ed page, Adelaide also contributed music reviews and was the author during the 1970s and 1980s of the "Friday Book Review," which was later moved to Mondays.

She also wrote travel features and in 1975, her cookbook, Culinary Treasures, was published.

Adelaide was a leader of early-morning bird walks around Lake Roland, was good at tennis, bridge, canoeing, needlepoint, gardening, of course, and cooking.

For years, Adelaide had been a member and on the board of Cylburn Arboretum Association, where earlier she had been the organization's librarian.

She was also a longtime member of the Baltimore City Forest Conservancy District Board and the Baltimore Bird Club.

Her husband died in 1996, and in 2000, Adelaide moved from her home of 40 years to a new one-floor house that had been designed by Ed Hord, a neighbor and architect, and built just 100 yards away from her former residence.

In her new home, Adelaide continued writing and following her usual routine of exercising and walking the Robert E. Lee Park loop road accompanied by her dog, Lady.

Adelaide had been writing an article for the forest conservancy board newsletter the day she suffered her fatal fall.

A lifelong Democrat, Adelaide was proud that she had cut her political teeth as a campaign worker during Adlai E. Stevenson's 1952 presidential campaign.

She was an uncompromising democrat - small and large D. She was among the very first volunteers to walk into Barack Obama's Maryland campaign office the minute it opened up.

She tutored in literacy programs, gave money to the homeless, took in stray dogs and cats, enjoyed a puckish turn of phrase, hated bad grammar, was annoyed by high-handedness, loved the Baltimore Opera and disliked modern-dress Shakespeare.

Adelaide willed her body to the Anatomy Board of Maryland.

Surviving Adelaide are her sister, Janet Williams of Sharon, Conn.; a niece, Sally Williams, and grandniece, Ellen Neilson, of Philadelphia; a nephew, Sandy Williams, of New York City.