Born in Moscow in 1887, Lamkert had a privileged upbringing due to her father’s position with the Imperial Government (he was widely known as the state censor who excised the "incendiary" aspects of Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard). She became fluent in four languages—Russian, English, French, and German—and taught in the Smolny Institute, where the daughters of the nobility received their education. After the Revolution, she housed, fed, and taught orphaned young women until 1924, when she learned her family would soon be purged. She fled first to Finland, Sweden, then China, where she lived and worked for a British import firm in Shanghai until World War II. Then, she made her way to America, arriving at Swarthmore in 1949.

Students loved Lamkert for her generosity, her "inevitable" fur hat, and for providing tea and kovrishka [gingerbread] during exams. Her importance to the community was acknowledged on her retirement in 1956, when she was awarded the John Nason Award for service to the College. It was noted then that the award had previously only been given to people with long years of service, which made the impact of her seven years at Swarthmore especially remarkable. She died in 1978 at age 91.

Lamkert often referred to her "beloved Swarthmore" in the letters that accompanied her modest donations to the College (she sent her "old maid’s mite" in April and November like clockwork for almost 20 years). In one, she described Swarthmore as "the place where I spent the happiest years of my life, since the revolution [sic]. The years which actually helped to efface all the horrors I had gone through then."

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