Diane E. Kreiman, 69, a mother of four who spent two decades alerting Chicagoans to the dangers of child abuse, died Sunday, June 9, in St. Joseph Mercy Livingston Hospital in Howell, Mich., of an infection related to treatments for a brain tumor. Mrs. Kreiman trained hundreds of people to give lectures on child abuse in schools and churches and before social clubs. Born Diane Edna Vose, she spent part of her childhood in Oshkosh, Wis., with a violent stepfather, said her daughter Darlene Paulauski. In 1972, Mrs. Kreiman, a member of her local chapter of B’nai B’rith Women, offered to join forces with a newly formed national committee on child abuse, said Susan Manos, the committee’s national coordinator in the early 1970s. Three years later she was running the Child Abuse Prevention Speaker’s Bureau out of the basement of her Dolton home, a voluntary position she retained until moving to Phoenix, Ariz., in 1994, her daughter said. Before her involvement in the speaker’s bureau, she biked to a job as a carhop and wrote stories for a suburban newspaper, her daughter said. Other survivors include two other daughters, Sandy Kreiman and Lori Snyder; a son, Michael; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Services will be from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday in the Elizabeth F. Cheney Mansion, 220 N. Euclid Ave., Oak Park.
