Ethel Kirschman, a homemaker and theater buff, died Saturday of emphysema at her Pikesville home. She was 95 and had lived in Pikesville for 52 years.

Born and raised in Detroit, Ethel Rubiner earned her bachelor's degree in 1928 from the University of Wisconsin. Then she returned to Detroit and worked as a secretary in the Wayne County clerk's office.

When asked to run for election as delegate to her county's Democratic convention in 1936, she reluctantly agreed -- and won. "What did I know about politics?" she said in recounting the story years later of her first, and last, electoral victory, family members said.

In 1945, she married Murray Kirschman, a New Yorker whom she had met in Detroit before World War II. The couple married in Baltimore while he was serving as a lieutenant with an Army chemical warfare unit at Edgewood Arsenal.

They lived in the Beverly Hills area of Northeast Baltimore before moving to Pikesville. Mr. Kirschman, a builder, died in 1992.

An avid bird watcher, Mrs. Kirschman was known for her beautifully designed gardens. She also enjoyed attending the theater in Baltimore, New York and Washington with her grandchildren.

She was a longtime member of Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.

Services are private.

Surviving are a daughter, Mary Jo Kirschman of Lauraville; a brother, Bernard Rubiner of Tucson, Ariz.; a sister, Ruth Kositchek of Okemos, Mich.; two grandchildren; and her caregiver, Linda Rodgers of Baltimore.