Renah Fearing Camalier (1890-1978)

From the Washington Evening Star, June 8, 1952.

  The Strangest Names In American Political History makes its second stop in the nation's capital for 2020 with a look at the life of Renah Fearing Camalier, who possesses an exotic-sounding name. Active in Democratic party circles in Washington, D.C., Camalier was an attorney who had served as secretary to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt and Senator Alva Adams of Colorado. Camalier later was retained as counsel for the Senate District Committee and in 1952 was appointed by President Truman as a member of the Washington, D.C. Board of Commissioners, a body that comprised three members who governed the district following the dissolve of the territorial government in 1874.

   A lifelong resident of Washington, D.C., Camalier was born in the district on October 8, 1890, the son of George Alexander (1848-1906) and Irene (Fearing) Camalier (1857-1941). His early education was obtained in the district's Abbott Elementary School, the Business High School, the Temple Secretarial School, and the Emerson Institute. He first entered into government service at the age of just sixteen, taking work as a clerk in the District Water Department. He later advanced to the position of chief of the water survey division, and for a time was a reporter and chief clerk to the district's Public Utilities Commission. Renah F. Camalier married on November 27, 1916 to Helen F. Edwards (1892-1975), to who he was wed for nearly sixty years. The couple would remain childless.

   Camalier's first experience in federal government service came in 1917 when a young Democratic politician, Franklin D. Roosevelt, assumed the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Wilson. Once confirmed, Roosevelt named Camalier as the department secretary, a role he would fill until September 1920. Camalier would also accompany Roosevelt on the latter's nationwide speaking tour in 1920 when he was nominated for Vice-President of the United States with presidential nominee James M. Cox.

   After leaving the naval department Camalier dabbled in real estate and in 1923 entered into the post of secretary in the office of U.S. Senator Alva B. Adams of Colorado. He turned his attention to law studies during this period, and in 1925 earned his degree from the National University. From 1925-26 Camalier served in the capacity of investigator for the Federal Trade Commission and in 1929 began service as an assistant U.S. Attorney, and would pursue "prohibition case persecutions".

  From 1930-33 Camalier engaged in private practice and again served under Alva B. Adams after the latter was reelected to the senate in 1933. Camalier would be appointed an assistant U.S. Attorney for Colorado and argued cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. He continued in federal government service with his appointment as clerk of the U.S. Senate Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation from 1935-37, and from 1937-40 was named clerk of the committee on Public Lands and Surveys. 

From the Washington Evening Star, November 9, 1952.

   By 1941 Camalier had advanced to the post of counsel for the Senate District Committee, and in the following year was named chairman of the Commissioner's Board of Visitors to Municipal Hospitals, where he served until 1951. During World War II Camalier was tapped to serve as a consultant to the District Office of Price Administration, where he was tasked "with solving a confused oil problem" on a volunteer basis.

 In addition to government service, Renah Camalier was long an active Mason in the district, serving as district Grand Master from 1952-53. He was named an honorary 33rd degree Mason, was a deputy of the Scottish Rite of the District of Columbia, and in 1949 served as Potentate of the Almas Temple Shriners. Camalier and his wife were parishioners of the Metropolitan United Methodist Church for many years and for over four decades he served as a member of its board of trustees. 

  A member of the law firm of Camalier and McDonald in the early 1950s, Camalier achieved his highest degree of public prominence in April 1952 when he was appointed by President Truman to the Washington, D.C. Board of Commissioners. A body that had first come into being in 1874 (following the dissolution of the territorial government of the District of Columbia), the Board of Commissioners became a three-man commission in 1878, with each of the members being appointed by the president. These men (one Republican, one Democrat, and one civil engineer with no political affiliation) would then choose one of their own as board president. This board also functioned as the city council during its existence.

  Succeeding outgoing board member John Russell Young, Camalier took his seat in June 1952. He would serve a three-year term and his service was:

"Marked by his efforts to increase welfare payments to the needy, to improve services at D.C. General Hospital and other health facilities, and his strong support for home rule for the District and representation for its residents in Congress."

Camalier during his service on the D.C. Board of Commissioners.

   During his term, Camalier was honored with the 1954 Deborah Humanitarian Award, due to his:

"Long and illustrious service and his devotion to the highest American ideals in behalf of less fortunate citizens regardless of race, color, creed or standing in society."

  Though wanting to reappointed to a second term on the board, Camalier was passed over by Republican president Dwight Eisenhower and left office in June 1955. He continued to reside in Washington, D.C., and from 1963-69 was a member of the American University Board of Trustees.  He also continued prominence in the masonic order and just months prior to his death Camalier was bestowed the Grand Master's Award at the Grand Lodge Banquet on December 21, 1977. Widowed in 1975, Renah Fearing Camalier died at his home in Washington on June 14, 1978, aged 87.  He was later interred at the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Silver City, Maryland and one should also note that an alternate middle name for Camalier is given amongst the rolls of deceased district grandmasters, "Franzoni". 

From the April 16, 1952 edition of the Washington Evening Star.