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Carol Ann Nordheimer, social innovator, community leader, and political operator, dies at 82

She was an assistant managing director of Philadelphia from 1980-84 and an important figure in local and national politics for more than 50 years.

Mrs. Nordheimer, with her husband, Ron Nordheimer, was a pioneering pollster on the issues of race and went door to door in the Deep South during the civil rights movement.
Mrs. Nordheimer, with her husband, Ron Nordheimer, was a pioneering pollster on the issues of race and went door to door in the Deep South during the civil rights movement.Read moreCourtesy of the family

Carol Ann Trimble Weisenfeld Nordheimer, 82, of Wilmington, a driven social innovator, an egalitarian community leader, and a progressive political operative, died Monday, Feb. 15, of congestive heart failure at Vitas hospice at Jefferson Methodist Hospital in Philadelphia.

Using her gregarious personality, broad intelligence, and indefatigable desire to organize and achieve, Mrs. Nordheimer made a difference in people’s lives through inventive economic and political activity.

“She had an uncanny ability to manage people,” said her husband of 43 years, Ron Nordheimer. “She could walk into a room, and by the end of the day have everybody doing something that was good and they were good at.”

Mrs. Nordheimer was an assistant managing director of Philadelphia from 1980-84 under Mayor William J. Green and an important player in minority politics in the city, state, and country from the 1960s through the 1980s.

She energized political campaigns for former State Sen. Hardy Williams, former U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, former Philadelphia Mayor Wilson W. Goode, former U.S. Sen. John Heinz, and many others.

She was a pioneering pollster on the issues of race and went door-to-door in the Deep South during the civil rights movement. She helped found the University City Science Center in Philadelphia in 1963 and founded and directed the New Jobs for Philadelphia program.

As a lobbyist for the Fox Chase Cancer Center in 1979, she helped enact Pennsylvania’s cigarette tax that still funds cancer research.

“Carol Ann cared deeply about social justice, and she relished both the drama and the detail of electoral politics,” her family wrote in a tribute.

A self-described news junkie, she would talk to anyone about anything, her husband said. Dedicated to celebrating diversity, she would work for both Democrats and Republicans as long as their policies helped minorities and the disadvantaged. She was a mentor for young activists.

“She changed lives,” her husband said.

Later, seeking to bring together service organizations and women in need, Mrs. Nordheimer worked with the Forum of Executive Women in Philadelphia and Wilmington, the Delaware Commission of Women, and the Delaware Fund for Women.

“Become involved so that you can build relationships,” she was quoted as saying in 2002 in the Daily News. “That’s how business is done.”

She was the first female president of the Caesar Rodney Rotary Club in Delaware and one of the first female district governors of Rotary International. In 1994, she opened her own firm, MarketTech Associates Inc., which focused on helping political campaigns and small businesses, especially those owned by minorities in Delaware.

“She was the ultimate business matchmaker,” her family wrote.

Mrs. Nordheimer was born Jan. 6, 1939, in Port Arthur, Texas, to Vance and Elzene Trimble. She grew up in Houston but graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland after her father, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for Scripps-Howard, was transferred to Washington.

So it was no surprise that Carol Ann Trimble became the editor of her high school newspaper and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in communications at the University of Pennsylvania.

After an earlier marriage to attorney Joseph Weisenfeld ended in divorce, she married Ron Nordheimer in 1977. They lived in Philadelphia for 12 years while she worked in the city and he worked in Wilmington.

They relocated to Wilmington for good in 1992, and she helped raise his three children from a previous marriage.

Mrs. Nordheimer enjoyed wide-ranging conversations. She was a voracious reader, especially of rollicking mysteries, and shared her favorite books with friends and relatives. She liked to hear jokes and was known for her boisterous laugh.

“She was a force,” said longtime friend Alyson Scott. “If she wanted something to get done, it was pretty likely going to happen.”

In addition to her husband and father, Mrs. Nordheimer is survived by stepchildren Diane Nordheimer, David Nordheimer, and Rex Nordheimer; three grandchildren; her former husband; and other relatives.

Services were held Feb. 19.

Donations in her name may be made to the Caesar Rodney Rotary Foundation, P.O. Box 1085, Wilmington, Del. 19899.