Lois Irene Abromitis

Lois (Neifert) Abromitis passed away on Friday May 5, 2017 at the Newport Hospital in Newport, RI. Loiswas born November 18, 1925, in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the only child of Emerson Clinton and Mary Irene (Weaver) Neifert. She grew up in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, graduating from Tamaqua High School in 1943. She attended the University of Michigan and graduated from Duke University, where she sang in the Duke Chapel Choir, in 1947. At Duke she was a member of Pi Beta Phi. After a brief period teaching English composition at Penn State University, she married then-Ensign William Abromitis, USN, on April 1, 1950, in Quonset Point, Rhode Island. During her husband's naval career, she lived in California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Virginia, and raised three children. She was an enthusiastic volunteer for education, music and the arts, and women's rights. She served in many leadership roles, including President of both the Newport branch and the Rhode Island division of the American Association of University Women, member of the Middletown (Rhode Island) School Committee (1978-1986), and Director of the Virginia Gildersleeve Foundation of the International Federation of University Women. She was preceded in death by her parents and her husband. She is survived by three children, Lois (Jere) Mackin of Plymouth, Minnesota; Bill (Sandra) Abromitis of Swannanoa, North Carolina; and Gail Abromitis (Stephen Ponte) of Middletown, Rhode Island; and also by two grandchildren, William J. Mackin (Mariko Gillen) and Kathryn I. Mackin (Jesse Knudson), both of Minneapolis, Minnesota.Funeral services and burial will be private.Memorial donations may be sent to Lois Abromitis Memorial Scholarship, Middletown Public Schools. Checks should be payable to Middletown Public Schools.