Louise Ano Nuevo Kerr

1938 - 2015

Louise Ano Nuevo Kerr
1938-2015
Former resident of Moraga
Louise A. Kerr, a historian and university administrator who retired in 1998 with her husband to Moraga, died surrounded by family Monday, August 31, at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD. She was 76, and the immediate cause was an infection. Kerr was born Virginia Louise Ano Nuevo in 1938 in Denver, Co., to Bonifacio Benjamin Ano Nuevo, a native Filipino, and Rosana Bertha Lopez Ano Nuevo of Co., both farmworkers. She grew up in central coastal California, the oldest of four siblings, and in off-school hours worked the fields with her family. Encouraged by a typing instructor, she graduated from Watsonville High School with a scholarship to the University of California, Los Angeles, earning an M.A. in sociology. She married Howard H. Kerr (then finishing graduate studies in American literature) and moved with him to Evanston, Il., where she taught two young daughters an ethos of public service through volunteer work with the League of Women Voters and in the movement to desegregate schools. She completed graduate work in U.S. history at the University of Illinois at Chicago and wrote a dissertation, The Chicano Experience in Chicago, 1920-70, that was a breakthrough study of the Mexican-American migration to the urban midwest. Believing that academics should engage the public, Kerr advocated for the then-nascent fields of ethnic and urban history, oral history, and public history. She received multiple honors and fellowships, contributed to essay collections and periodicals, and was named associate dean at Loyola and, eventually, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1980 to 1987, Kerr was among historian advisers during preparations to re-open Ellis Island as a memorial museum, and she was recognized by an oral history project of Smith College honoring pioneers of women's history. In 1998, Kerr retired with her husband to California's East Bay. She attended First Congregational Church of Berkeley, sang alto in the Moraga community chorus, and served on the board of Shelter Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to shielding the poor from homelessness. In 2012 she relocated to the Riderwood retirement community in Silver Spring, Md., to be near family. A life-long supporter and student of the arts, she organized a Chinese brush painting class and was active until her death on Riderwood's Scholarship, African-American History, and Gala Planning committees. She was celebrated by friends old and new for her forthright spirit, range of insight, and the graceful resolve with which she sought and shared joy through five decades of rheumatoid arthritis. Predeceased by her beloved husband, Howard H. Kerr, she was devoted to the well-being of two daughters: Catherine, of Watertown, Ma., and her husband, Jonathan Kranes, and Sarah, of North Bethesda, Md., and her husband, Michael Tomasky; a granddaughter, Margot Julianna Kerr Tomasky; a stepdaughter, Lizabeth Kerr, of Costa Mesa, Ca.; two sisters, Clara Neebling of Red Bluff, Ca., and Delores Broetzman of Las Vegas, Nev., a brother, Ben Ano Nuevo, also of Red Bluff; a sister-in-law, Janice Kerr, of Orinda, Ca., and numerous nieces and nephews. Donations in her memory, marked "memorial for Louise Kerr," may be made to the Riderwood scholarship fund (dedicated to helping that community's staff obtain a higher education) and mailed to Riderwood Philanthropy Department, 3110 Gracefield Road, Silver Spring, MD 20904.