Blog

Posted Wed, Oct 21, 2009

Laura Karin Mann has passed away

By Jane E. Allen

Just learned that Laura Karin Mann passed away on Monday, Oct. 19. One of her freshman roommates in Vanderbilt Hall, Elizabeth Maher, passed along the following notice from the Burlington Free Press in Vermont:
HINESBURG - Laura Mann of Hinesburg died peacefully at home with her family on Oct. 19, 2009. She was born in Stamford, Conn. on March 21, 1958, daughter of Milton and Norma (Frank) Mann. She graduated from Yale University in 1980, majoring in Asian studies. After travel and exploration of Alaska and Asia, she attended the Pace Nursing Program and Frontier Nursing Service in Kentucky. She was certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner and a nurse midwife. She took these skills to northern Vermont where she lived and practiced over 21 years. She began her midwifery career with the Claire Lintelac Nurse Midwifery Service. She then went on to create a home birth practice, Welcoming Home Midwifery. She helped many families bring their babies into the world, giving selflessly of her time and energy. In her final years, she focused her caring on creating the Dhatri Foundation, a non-profit organization promoting complementary medicine and a model for compassionate care. She hoped that Dhatri could play a role in helping others connect with a broad array of healing modalities as a path towards wellness and healing. Even as she struggled with her own illness, she selflessly devoted her energy to see this vision come to fruition. Laura is survived by her two beautiful children, Isaiah and Iris; her partner, Jo Edmondson; her parents, Milton and Norma Mann; her two sisters, Madeline and Pamela; and her six nieces and nephews. Laura's family would like to thank friends, Laura's caring healers, doctors and nurses for helping her and honoring her through this part of her journey. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 21 in Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, 188 N. Prospect St., Burlington. Interment will follow in Hebrew Holy Society Cemetery, Patchen Road, South Burlington. The family will have visitors and sit shiva at their home on Wednesday evening from 6 to 8 p.m. Contributions in Laura's memory may be made to the Dhatri Foundation or the charity of choice. Arrangements are by Boucher and Pritchard Funeral Directors.

Anyone who would like to share thoughts or remembrances of Laura can send them along to me at loisjane@verizon.net and we'll post them in the In Memoriam section of this Web site.