Judge Sylvia Rambo at the new federal courthouse when it was under construction. Photo courtesy of Sarah McGowan.
If destiny has a voice, Sylvia Rambo heard it loud and clear long ago on the school bus to her elementary school.
She was headed from her home at the U.S. Army Carlisle Barracks, where her stepfather was stationed, to the borough’s former Franklin School. Suddenly, she recalled, a voice told her to become a lawyer.
It was an unusual calling, especially given the times. Women were few and far between in the profession, and Rambo came from a low-income family. If she listened to the voice, she’d become the first in her family to graduate college.
“From that time on, I became a straight-A student,” she said. “That became my drive from that point on.”
Those days on the school bus, and later attending law school, feel like a lifetime ago, reflected Judge Rambo, sitting in her large chambers high up in the downtown Harrisburg Federal Building. She will turn 87 this month.
It has been a lifetime of career success for the U.S. District Court-Middle District of Pennsylvania judge of 24 years. Her career has been noteworthy not only for her own achievements but for women across the state and country, as she blazed trails and made history. And she has done it humbly, rarely taking the time to count her accomplishments, simply continuing forward with the work she has always felt destined to do.
“I just kept on going because there were women behind me,” she said. “I just did what I knew I could do and tried to do that well.”
Last June, state officials held a ceremony to announce that Harrisburg’s new federal courthouse on N. 6th Street would be named in honor of Rambo. The courthouse, which held a ribbon-cutting in December, now bears the name, “The Sylvia H. Rambo United States Courthouse.” It’s the first federal courthouse in the commonwealth to be named after a woman. In fact, Rambo is one of only three living female judges to have a courthouse named after her.
“I still haven’t come to grips with it,” she said. “It’s still unbelievable.”
Underdog
Rambo grew up the daughter of divorced parents, a German immigrant mother and a father who she never saw after the age of 2. Her mother later remarried, and the family moved when her stepfather was posted to the U.S. Army War College at the Carlisle Barracks.
After her school-bus-light-bulb moment, Rambo set her sights on becoming a lawyer. She loved reading about Clarence Darrow, an early 20th-century defense attorney who was known for helping low-income workers and the disadvantaged. Rambo was also passionate about supporting the overlooked and underserved.
“I was always concerned for the underdog,” she said.
Rambo went on to graduate from Dickinson College in Carlisle and later from Dickinson School of Law as the only woman of the class of 1962.
She was a minority in her field, but never let that get in her way. She was fiercely driven and independent, but never scolded men who opened the door for her, as some of her female colleagues did, during her time as a public defender in Cumberland County.
“In no way does that take away from your independence,” she explained.
She became the first woman to hold the title of chief public defender in the county. But that would be only one of many firsts to come. She was soon after appointed the first woman to serve on the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas for Cumberland County.
In 1979, Rambo became part of a historic class of federal judges appointed by then-President Jimmy Carter. Rambo, named to the Middle District of Pennsylvania, was one of 23 women appointed that year. For comparison, only 10 women were appointed as U.S. federal judges in the previous 190 years.
She would later serve as the first woman chief judge of the Middle District.
At the same time that Rambo was in the midst of the FBI background investigation process before her appointment, history was being made in another way. She followed the news with her late husband, George Douglas, as the Three Mile Island nuclear plant suffered a partial meltdown.
“I said, ‘I wonder who’s going to get that litigation?’ And he said, ‘I think I’m looking at her,” Rambo recalled.
Douglas was right. Rambo would go on to preside over litigation surrounding the TMI accident for 20 years.
Other cases she handled included mandated special education services for students, the Camp Hill prison riots in 1989, environmental protection issues and sprawling fraud cases.
With each case, she strived to remain as fair as possible, hearing all sides and considering all perspectives.
“I try to treat everyone, no matter who they are, in court, with respect,” she said.
Your Honor
Outside of the courtroom, Rambo loved sports, including basketball and volleyball. She also adored animals and always had German shepherd dogs. Years ago, she owned and rode horses on her property, farmland near Carlisle. She also would cut her own firewood, pointing to a picture in her office of her sawing a log.
Her husband, Douglas, was a trial attorney. And like Rambo, he was always concerned about helping those he interacted with. However, the couple never discussed their cases, unless it was something funny, Rambo added. Her husband was always supportive of her career, and she’s grateful that he didn’t mind that she didn’t take his last name in marriage.
While Rambo said that, for the most part, she was respected as a judge, that wasn’t always the case.
She recalled an occasion when a male lawyer repeatedly responded to her with “yes sir, I mean, ma’am.” She knew it was deliberate and called him to the stand asking, “When you have to respond to a male judge, how do you address him?” He replied that he used the term “your honor.”
“I said, ‘That works perfectly well with me,’” she said. “He got very angry.”
Martin Carlson, magistrate judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, has been a colleague of Rambo’s for years and has witnessed the environment of her courtroom.
“She demands and commands absolute respect,” he said. “She really is the model of what a judge should be. She brings to her work not only a great legal mind, but a great heart.”
Even after a life full of career accomplishments and firsts, Rambo was shocked to find out that the new courthouse, a project she helped lead, would bear her name.
“That courthouse ends up being a lasting monument to her life and career and an inspiration to everyone that there are no limits to what you can achieve,” Carlson said. “It’s a remarkable legacy.”
But Rambo admitted that she hasn’t really thought about her legacy. Throughout her life, she just kept pressing forward and now, as she ages and deals with medical issues, she admits that she’s getting tired.
“People will what think what they think of me,” she said confidently.
At the moment, Rambo is focused on packing up her longtime office downtown, as staff at the federal building will make the move to the new courthouse in the coming months. It’s been a lot of work, she said, but she’s excited. At the same time, she’s considering what the next few years may hold, as she knows she’s approaching the end of her career. She’s loved her work and, though there have been challenges, looking back, she’s satisfied.
“It’s been quite a life,” Rambo said. “I wouldn’t give it up.”
The Sylvia H. Rambo United States Courthouse is located at 1501 N. 6th St., Harrisburg.
If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!
