Conversations with Irene Irene Donnelly, long-time activist and friend of many Bay Area CrossRoads readers, died on April 2, surrounded by friends and family. I've been thinking a lot about Irene since I heard the news that she passed away. For many of us, Irene's kitchen was a spontaneous gathering place where we met to talk politics, read the latest issue of CrossRoads or the Nation, trade jokes and gossip, have some warm Campbells soup or a cup of tea, or just to "get a dose of Irene." Irene had a great sense of humor, and a special knack for making you laugh at yourself just when you thought the world was too insane, or you thought you might cry. Irene's wide circle of friends knew her in many different lights -- as a designer, oil painter, muralist, dancer, voracious reader, cat lover, mentor, surrogate mother, humanitarian, dedicated political activist. Her political experiences read like a history book of twentieth- century progressive movements. She was born in 1908, and early memories included sitting on Eugene Deb's knee as he talked with her father, a railroad organizer, late into the night. Immediately after World War II, gathering signatures on a "Ban the Bomb" petition initiated by Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Schweitzer landed her in jail. The FBI hounded her family during the McCarthy witchhunts, and cost her husband his job. She worked with the American Friends Service Committee and participated in their Civil Rights bus trips to the South. One of her most cherished moments was meeting C‚sar Ch vez early in his career. Irene was a natural, holding roundtable political discussions especially for women long before the official women's movement hit the scene. She marched for peace in Vietnam and wheelchaired down Market Street to stop the war in the Persian Gulf, bedecked with antiwar signs her family had made for her. She hated to miss anything. But I think I will remember her most sitting in her kitchen, with a cup of Nescafe and a pack of Pall Malls, graciously listening to all us young'uns carrying on, offering encouragement and a kind word. --Eileen Raphael