Not long after Geraldine Warner turned four years old, her parents threw her a fifth birthday party. Two weeks later, she had a sixth birthday party. After three cakes in one month, she could confidently tell everyone she was six years old, and off she went to the first grade.
“I was so nervous,” said Warner, reflecting on a time nearly eight decades ago. “But there was something about me. I must have been taller. Or I looked older than I was.”
With red hair that her father described as “the color of the sunset,” Ginger Warner quickly adjusted. In first grade, she was mastering the second grade lessons. She was a promising golfer and was even recruited to play on the ladies’ tour. She was pretty good at Irish dancing, too.
The nuns who taught Ginger in high school were “the people who first inspired me how to live my life,” said Warner. According to them, she said, “there wasn’t anything that any of us couldn’t do.” Ninety-four year old Sister Mary Avila, a semi-cloistered nun who had a special dispensation to paint in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , taught Warner about pastels and oil paintings. The Mother Superior insisted Ginger, a glee club member, learn Mozart’s Mass in C Minor.
Art and music became her passion, and later in life she would dedicate her time to sharing that love with the people of Ohio and Cincinnati.
Warner went to Cornell, one of two Ivy League schools admitting women at the time, and studied economics. Law school at NYU followed, and Warner became a successful lawyer when just 1% of practicing attorneys were women.
She worked in New York, DC, and Paris. On top of a promising career in corporate law, her life was full of adventure, spending time in theaters, attending concerts, and meeting lifelong friends.
Her career took her to DC, where she joined a development company and eventually met her husband, David. In her new role, she found herself to be talented at advocacy. She relied on her legal skills and established relationships to handle complex issues. As she and her husband moved across the country, from DC to LA to NY to Indianapolis, and eventually, to Cincinnati, Ginger continued to work and manage various parts of the development business. In each city, she found time to volunteer and engage in the arts.
When Warner arrived in Cincinnati in the early eighties with her husband and two children, she continued a pattern of immersing herself in the local arts culture. She joined the board of the May Festival, one of her great passions. There, she met Louise Nippert, Cincinnati’s most prominent and generous arts benefactor, and 1995 Great Living Cincinnatian. “I admired her so much. She was lovely, quiet, and unassuming,” said Warner of the woman she still refers to respectfully as Mrs. Nippert.
Before long, there seemingly wasn’t an arts organization in Cincinnati that didn’t benefit from the generosity and enthusiasm of Ginger Warner. Over four decades, she served and supported generously the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Taft Museum of Art, Ensemble Theater, May Festival, and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
And her love for the arts extended across Ohio. In 1997, Governor George Voinovich appointed her to the Ohio Arts Council. She’s served continuously since then, reappointed by multiple Governors of both parties. She’s currently the organization’s Chair.
In that role, and with the “team,” as she refers to her colleagues at the Ohio Arts Council, Warner drew on lessons from early in her career. “I love the challenge of being persuasive with people,” said Warner. Persuasive is an understatement. When she started her work, Ohio funded the arts in 53 counties. Today, thanks to Warner’s advocacy, all 88 Ohio counties receive arts funding, ensuring Ohioans can access and enjoy arts no matter where they live.
An avid gardener and enthusiast for the natural world, Warner served on the Great Parks Board and joined local garden clubs. Thanks to an invitation from her friend Mrs. Nippert, she joined the board of Greenacres, an organization she still serves today.
Governor John Kasich called on Ginger to serve in 2012, asking her to join the board of the University of Cincinnati. As a Trustee, Ginger recalled her time at Cornell and her frustration at inequities between men’s and women’s sports. In a fitting tribute, Warner created the Women’s Excellence Fund to permanently support UC’s female athletes.
Still an active volunteer and leader in 2020, Warner was in a meeting when she felt a gentle pressure on her chest. Doctors soon realized she was having a heart attack. Weeks of intensive care went by, and after a few scary moments, Warner was released from The Christ Hospital. Her treatment led to a friendship with Christ Hospital CEO Deborah Hayes. Soon, Christ would recruit a new doctor specifically to lead women’s heart health efforts. Today, Dr. Odayme Quesada is the Ginger Warner Endowed Chair for Women’s Health, leading an institute that will do groundbreaking research and treatment for years to come.
Warner’s eclectic and fascinating life has been one the nuns at the Academy of the Holy Angels would have admired. She shared her passions with the world by generously supporting the arts and culture in Ohio, and she excelled in everything she tried. Through it all, Ginger Warner, a 2025 Great Living Cincinnatian, remained humble and graceful as she reflected on her life so well lived: “I had an angel on my shoulder my whole life, truly.”
Three Questions with Ginger Warner
What advice do you have for the next generation of Cincinnatians/?
Find something you are passionate about, share it, invest in it, use it to make a difference in your life and in the lives of others.
Do you have a motto or creed by which you live your life?
“Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead; that is where your future lies.” I’ve always been a future-focused person. I wake up each morning wondering what the day will bring and I rise to meet it.
Who has been an inspirational figure in your life?
I have a bracelet from Greenacres emblazed with WWMND for “What would Mrs. Nippert do?” Louise Dieterle Nippert remains a tremendous inspiration. She was calm and collected on the outside, but ferocious on the inside with a fierce determination in her generosity.
