Lois Adelman Raj
Amherst, MA – LOIS ADELMAN RAJ died in the early morning on November 5th 2023 at the age of 80.
Lois was born in East Chicago, Indiana and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania with her five siblings (her sisters Esther and Deborah, and her brothers Jack, Harry, and Bruce). Both her family, and their close engagements in the community of her hometown were an enormous source of both pride and comfort to her the whole of her life.
After graduation from Scranton’s Central High School. Lois completed her undergraduate degree at Penn State University in State College, PA, and then went on to her graduate work at University of Chicago. While at home with her small children, she was constantly active in mental health, volunteering to work with other children at her children’s schools, and providing psychological and emotional support for at risk members in every community of which she was a part.
After moving to Amherst to raise her children alone in 1984, Lois worked for more than thirty years in the Hampshire Valley mental health community: at Valley Programs, later incorporated into the Northampton based Servicenet, on staff at Cooley Dickinson Adult Psychiatric Inpatient unit, as well as years of service as a Massachusetts Human Rights Commissioner for the town of Amherst, and counseling therapy patients privately. Compassionate and strongly committed to her work, Lois was known for her emotional and intellectual generosity with coworkers, mentees, and consumers, her extra efforts and her ability to combine high quality care with dignity and joy for all of those she served.
Lois was predeceased by her beloved parents, Abe and Olga (Mozurkewich) Adelman of Scranton, PA, and her older brother John Edward Adelman. Besides her remaining siblings, Lois is survived by her two children: Kusam Jai Raj and her son Gray Everson, and Khiran Mithra Raj and his wife Yasotha Sriharan, eight nieces and nephews, lifelong beloved cousins, and a community of friends and patients throughout the Hampshire Valley. The family requests that no flowers be sent or donations made, but a memorial service and celebration of Lois’s life and work is planned for early Summer 2024.
Published by Daily Hampshire Gazette from Nov. 16 to Nov. 24, 2023.