Eleanor Kormann Bingham, 97, who taught French and German in Washington area schools, died Dec. 30 of respiratory failure at a residential care facility in Mission Viejo, Calif. She was a former resident of Washington and Chevy Chase.
Mrs. Bingham was born in New York City. She graduated from Hunter College in New York and taught in the New York City public school system before moving to Washington in 1947.
For several years in the late 1940s and early 1950s, she taught French to elementary students at Mrs. Cook's School, now the Sheridan School, in Washington. In 1952, she taught a weekly course in French on a local television station, with students in the studio.
From 1954 to 1968, Mrs. Bingham taught in the Montgomery County schools, where she helped develop the county's program of foreign languages in elementary schools. She taught first at Woodlin Elementary School and later at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. She was known as "Frau Bingham" at Bethesda-Chevy Chase, where she taught German.
She was active in the League of Women Voters in the 1950s. After she retired from teaching in 1968, Mrs. Bingham was a volunteer with Church Women United of Greater Washington, for which she served as president. She was a member of First Baptist Church in Washington and devoted much of her volunteer time to working for interracial and interfaith understanding.
She lived in Chicago for several years before moving to California about 1998.
Her husband of 59 years, Alfred J. Bingham, died in 1994.
Survivors include two daughters, Rosalind "Bunny" Smith of Takoma Park and Diana Earley of Chicago; a sister, Elsie Stahl of Teaneck, N.J.; a brother, John Kormann of Chevy Chase; six grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
