Her family moved to Belle Harbor for four years when she was as a young child, but returned to Manhattan thereafter, and grew up on the West Side.
[1] She graduated from Hunter College and worked as a teacher, and an economist in the United States Department of the Treasury in Washington, DC.
In 1952, Everett Straus was offered a job with a cigar manufacturer RG Dunn in Detroit, and they relocated with their young son, Peter.
[1] She resigned from this position to run for Congress in 1974 to succeed Martha Griffiths in Michigan's 17th congressional district, but lost in the democratic primary.
[12] Her final professional position before election to the Michigan State Board of Education was as President of the Center for Creative Studies, a Detroit arts college.
[11] First elected to the Michigan State Board of Education in 1992, Straus was re-elected for two additional eight-year terms, ending on January 1, 2017,[4] when she was 93 years old.