Lois Mandros

Remembering
Jim And Lois Mandros

They met at Eastman School of Music where Lois studied harp and Jim clarinet. They married in 1955 and travelled to Rome on Fulbright Music Scholarships. After a tour for Lois with the Kansas City Philharmonic and Jim with the United States Army Band, they went back to NYC for a graduate degree at Columbia in Third World Affairs.

They headed to Bombay, India, Rawalpindi and Peshawar, Pakistan and later to Poznan and Warsaw, Poland, also spending some time in Arnold, Maryland and Annapolis. Four years in New Delhi, India and then Jim left the State Department to work for Massachusetts Audubon, living in both Concord and Carlisle, Massachusetts. Working again for State, Jim served in Somalia (the only tour where they were separated) and then they headed to live in the wonderful wild city of Marrakech in Morocco.

Finally retiring after a few more years in Maryland, Jim and Lois chose to build their dream home in Santa Fe New Mexico, a town they remembered from their camping honeymoon. With Lois doing docent work for the Folk Art Museum and the Santa Fe Opera and Jim learning to carve santos with Felix Lopez at Santa Fe Community College, they felt they had found a community with enough adventure and diversity to settle down.

 Over the years a host of pets accompanied them all over the world, and their two children as well. With Jim’s health declining they downsized to the Montecito and met a new community, passing their final days with plants, books and visitors, even granddaughters. Jim died peacefully holding Lois’ hand, and Lois followed him unexpectedly thirteen days later. May we all live with so much love and so much wonder. May each day be an adventure and a chance to cherish the wonderful world we live in.

Seven decades of Love, Travel and adventure