Biography

Hattie Selma Joanne Bratzel Kremen was born in North Dakota in 1908. The next year, her family moved to Gresham, Oregon, then to Mulino, Oregon, about six years later. They briefly lived in Silverton, Oregon, and finally settled in Salem, Oregon, in around 1919. She worked as a court reporter in Polk and Marion counties after high school, until 1945, when she enrolled at Northwestern College of Law in Portland, Oregon. She took a break to serve as a court reporter at the Nuremberg Trials in Germany in 1947. When she returned, she continued her law studies at Willamette University, then finished her law degree at Northwestern College of Law in 1951. That same year, she ran for the office of district attorney of Marion County. She lost that race, instead going into private law practice in Eugene. In 1956, she ran again and won, becoming Oregon’s first woman district attorney. In 1959, she and Leonard L. Kremen were married. After she left office in 1964, she returned to private law practice in Salem. She died in 1996.

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