Carmen H Warschaw

A lifelong, often fiercely partisan Democrat, Warschaw died on election day but had made certain she could take part in her final election by casting an absentee ballot the previous week. Warschaw was the Democratic Party's Southern California chairwoman in the mid-1960s, and a powerful force in Democratic politics. A member of the Democratic National Committee in the late 1960s, Warschaw also attended every Democratic convention from 1948 to 2008. Her father, a successful businessman, founded Harvey Aluminum Co. She grew up in La Cañada and in 1939 earned a bachelor's degree in social work from USC. A year before graduating, she married Louis Warschaw, her high school sweetheart and fellow USC student. A Los Angeles business and civic leader, he died in 2000. In 2003, Warschaw donated $3 million to USC for an endowed chair in practical politics, reflecting her interest in teaching students about politics in the real world.