Olga Krayak Kronmeyer

Olga Krayak Kronmeyer, 93, of Lynchburg, passed away on Thursday, June 18, 2026. She was born on September 5, 1932, in Passaic, New Jersey, to Elsie Herbig Kronmeyer and Charles C. Kronmeyer.

Olga grew up in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and was a summer resident of Grahamsville, New York, at the entrance to the Catskills National Park.

Olga earned her bachelor’s degree from Seton Hall University and her Ph.D. in English Literature from Purdue University. In 1977, she moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, where she became a Professor of English at Liberty University. She was honored as the university’s Poet Laureate during the 1987–1988 academic year.

She was a member of First Presbyterian Church and the Poetry Society of Virginia. Olga loved poetry and was active as both a writer and an editor. She published and edited a 1993 Poetry Society of Virginia anthology. She also was the editor of The 2007 Alchemist, an anthology of poems of the Alchemy Club, a group of poets based in Grahamsville, NY.

Olga will be remembered as a dedicated teacher, a lover of literature, and a thoughtful poet.

An Honest Man?

Still Looking for an Honest Man? He's not white, black, Latino, Muslim.

He needs no rug, no drum, no statue, no shack, no human law to see charity.

He spreads corn for the crows, cuts grass for the munching deer, deepens the brook

for the spring blue of lilacs and thirsty willows.

He pulls out tall weeds and digs holes for gold zinnias and orange chrysanthemums

to brighten the fall's morning sun. Sunday evening, he spoons the split pea soup

for the family supper as they listen to the shadows of the Lord and to their

madonna who blesses their refuge. She puts the good book down, and he prays

for the comfort of the sick in good and gray weather, for the winter's shoeless, for those

who cannot find the Lord's work in their own home, for his own workmen, boy or city man whom his madonna will not let him fire the proverbial man who feeds his sons.

My righteous father who feeds all his children.

Tharp Funeral Home & Crematory, Lynchburg is assisting the family.