Ann Orlov-Rubinow, at 81; editor, activist achieved much in varied life

A chance conversation in 1974 gave Ann Orlov-Rubinow the idea for the "Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups," her most significant achievement as an editor.

"Ann Orlov, the managing editor for the project, was going to a new dentist for the first time," Stephan Thernstrom, the book's editor, told the Globe in 1980. "During the course of the appointment, he mentioned his name and she asked, 'What sort of name is that?' And he told her he was Albanian. . . . She realized how little she knew about Albanians as an American ethnic group and how necessary it was to have a survey of all the ethnic groups in the country."

Six years later, the book was published. A comprehensive accounting of more than 100 ethnic groups in the United States, it ran to more than 1,300 pages.

No less comprehensive was Mrs. Orlov-Rubinow's life. She was a civil rights activist who became an editor at Harvard University Press. She opened a bed and breakfast in Vermont in her late 50s, survived surgery for a brain tumor, and was a graduate student of theology in her late 60s.

Mrs. Orlov-Rubinow died of complications from pneumonia on Jan. 5 in Tucson, where she had moved in 2002 after marrying the man she had loved and lost more than half a century earlier. She was 81.

"She lived a rich life, and her capacity to keep expanding her horizons was just amazing," said the Rev. Constance Parvey of Cambridge, a friend since the late 1950s.

Betty Ann Orlov was born in Boston and grew up in Brookline, graduating from Brookline High School and Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.

She was pursuing a doctorate in history at Harvard University in the 1950s when she became friends with others in Cambridge who were involved with the civil rights movement. A founder of the Boston chapter of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, she took part in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s march in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.

Back in Cambridge, she hosted gatherings that invariably featured vigorous intellectual discussions.

"Ann was very effervescent, making sure people got to know each other," Parvey said. "Not just, 'This is so-and-so, and this is so-and-so,' but, 'What are we going to do about this?' She engaged people. Ann was not someone who started with the weather. She started out with what was absolutely on her mind. It was a heady time. It was a time when we were remapping the theological and social landscape. But we also weren't radical in a sense. We considered that what we were about was like the founders of the Constitution. We were just trying to do what good citizens do."

Leaving graduate studies, Mrs. Orlov-Rubinow joined Harvard University Press, where she became editor for behavioral sciences and conceived of the ethnic groups encyclopedia. In the early 1980s, after it was published, she moved to Stowe, Vt., and opened a bed and breakfast in the village.

"I don't think she sort of needed to, but she loved people so much," said Jeanne Breeden of Leyden, a friend for more than 45 years.

She also became involved in environmental issues and with St. John's Episcopal Church in Stowe and continued to hold gatherings and lively discussions in her home.

Then, in 1994, she was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor that had to be removed.

"It was in a ticklish place, and there was a question of whether she was going to be awake during the operation," said Rett Sturman, a friend in Morrisville, Vt. "And she chose definitely to be awake. That was just her character, to jump into things."

The surgery left her with difficulty walking, but she paid little heed.

"She never had a 'poor me' attitude about anything or 'Why me?' It was just, 'Let's get on with everything,' " Breeden said.

Mrs. Orlov-Rubinow began studying theology in Vermont and New York City, and received a master's degree in theology from Regis College in Toronto in 1996. The next year, she pursued Jewish studies at St. George's College in Jerusalem and later founded the Friends of St. Andrew's to provide financial assistance to St. Andrew's Biblical and Theological College in Moscow.

Last summer, she wrote a reminiscence of the unusual romance that served as bookends for her adult life. She had met Merrill Rubinow in 1943, just before she started at Bryn Mawr College and he went to World War II as a medical officer.

"We exchanged V-mail letters almost daily for the next two years," she wrote. When he left the Army, he was ready to marry.

"Ten years, and a college junior, I was not ready for that commitment," she wrote. "Sadly, we went our separate ways and never exchanged a word for 56 years."

Dr. Rubinow married, but after his wife died, he contacted the woman he had loved decades earlier. They decided to meet in Parvey's home in Cambridge.

"They sat on the couch and held hands, and it was the sweetest thing in the world," Parvey said. "And we talked until 1:30 in the morning. I think it was two days later, she called me. She said, 'Connie, I'm going to marry him.' "

"Old boyfriend just sounds too casual," said Constance Kantar of Newton, a cousin. "He was her real first love and the love of her life."

Dr. Rubinow died in June, four years after they married.

"The whole thing was just amazing," Parvey said. "Those of us who were at the wedding, we were all so blessed by this. It was just such a gracious, loving relationship. If you could see a picture of the two of them together, they were just like kids."

Services will be held in Boston; Stowe, Vt.; and Tuscon, at dates to be announced.