Decatur House resident Lourana Thomas was born and raised in Deerfield, MA. Her parents were both accomplished musicians and Lourana followed in their footsteps, going on to earn a bachelor’s in music education from Oberlin College and then taking graduate classes in music therapy. This training and education led to a 40-year career teaching music, mostly piano. After all those years of teaching, Lourana says she developed a lot of patience!
It’s notable that much of Lourana’s teaching took place overseas as her husband Charles was a Foreign Service Officer in the State Department who served all over the world. Over the course of 40 years they lived in many places including Mexico, Honduras, Uruguay, Portugal, Brussels, and Hungary. For Lourana, this meant a lot of entertaining of foreign dignitaries and statesmen as well as visiting government officials. (No surprise that Lourana is fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and knows some Hungarian!)
In addition to planning events, during her time abroad, Lourana was responsible for a large staff and raised four children.
Lourana lost her husband in 1998. She continued to travel through the Rhodes Scholar Tour Company. This brought her to places like China, Argentina, Tanzania, and the United States.
Fourteen years ago, Lourana decided to return to Massachusetts to live near her son. She (and her labradoodle Sheba) came to live at Decatur House in October. We are so glad to have this kind and interesting woman in the House with us now.
