Lourdes C. Delson

Lourdes Delson, beloved mother, grandmother, educator, and an unforgettable force of nature, died peacefully on August 28, 2026, surrounded by the family she loved so fiercely.

Lourdes was born on April 27, 1931, in Lima, Peru, one of eleven children. In her twenties, she left Peru for New York City, where she worked as an executive secretary for the American Cyanamid Company. It was there that Lourdes, a young woman from Lima, met Abraham “Abe” Delson, a Jewish boy from the Bronx. They married in 1959 and built a life together filled with family, learning, laughter, and love.

Lourdes was the devoted mother of Judy Rosen (Rich Rosen) and Michael Delson (Nancy Delson), and the proud grandmother of Rebecca Rosen Davis (Ned Davis), Joshua Rosen (Diana Rosen), Matthew Delson, and Sean Delson. Her family was the center of her world, and she loved them with an intensity and generosity that they will carry with them always.

Lourdes was as accomplished as she was charismatic. While raising her children, she returned to school and ultimately earned her doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts. She became a professor at Springfield Technical Community College in Springfield, Massachusetts, where she developed a Medical Spanish curriculum that helped doctors, nurses, firefighters, police officers, and other professionals communicate with Springfield’s growing Hispanic community.

She also served in a community leadership role as a corporator of Wesson Women’s Memorial Hospital, a role she valued deeply because of the hospital’s commitment to caring for women, particularly those most in need.

But a list of accomplishments could never capture Lourdes.

She was intelligent, artistic, curious, beautiful, funny, and irrepressibly alive. She loved art, music, theater, books, conversation, parties, and people. She could light up a room simply by entering it. People wanted to be in her orbit.

Perhaps her greatest gift was the way she saw people. Lourdes had an extraordinary ability to recognize who someone really was and to make that person feel interesting, important, beautiful, and loved. She was sunshine and fire—warm, spirited, joyful, and utterly herself.

Above all, Lourdes loved fiercely. She loved her husband, her children and their spouses, her grandchildren and their spouses, her extended family, and the many people whose lives became intertwined with hers. And she was loved just as fiercely in return.

Her family will miss her laughter, her intelligence, her enormous spirit, and the joy she brought into their lives.

To have been loved by Lourdes was a gift.