Esteemed international educator and beloved wife and parent
Dr. Anahid Apelian Mangouni died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack Tuesday evening, November 14, 2017, at her home in Andover, Massachusetts, while making dinner preparations for a family gathering.
She was born August 21, 1932, in Aleppo, Syria, to George and Marie Apelian and moved with her parents to Beirut, Lebanon, where she received her early education in French, receiving a Baccalauréat in Sciences Expérimentales before graduation from the Lycée Français and proceeding to the American University of Beirut where she earned a B.A. degree in Psychology in 1953. She then attended the Merrill-Palmer Institute for Child and Family Development in Detroit, Michigan, receiving its certificate in 1954, and went on to the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, for an M.A. degree in Psychology in 1955.
She returned to Ann Arbor as a scholarship recipient in 1962 to study for her Ph.D. degree in Educational Psychology, which was granted in 1963. Back in Beirut, she taught psychology to students at the Haigazian College and the Beirut College for Women, before her marriage at St. Nishan Armenian Orthodox Church, in Beirut, on May 10, 1964, to Norman S. Mangouni, a journalist whom she met at the University of Michigan.
The couple first settled in Ann Arbor, where she taught classes at the University of Michigan and at the nearby Eastern Michigan University, later moving to Coral Gables, Florida, for a year, to head a research study at the University of Miami. They then moved to upstate New York, where she taught psychology at Russell Sage College, JCA division, in Albany, a position she held for 12 years. During this time she gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Isabelle.
In 1978, she joined the staff of the American College of Switzerland, as Dean of Students, later being promoted to the rank of Professor of Psychology and the position of Academic Dean. After spending nine years in Switzerland, she returned to the United States. She took a position teaching psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and after two years moved to San Francisco, California to become the Principal of the Krouzian-Zekarian-Vasbouragan School. She retired in 1994, returning once again to Ann Arbor, and then in 2003 moving to Maricopa County, Arizona, where she was a poll worker in several elections cycles. Her final relocation move to Massachusetts in 2016 came in a desire to be closer to her siblings and daughter.
In later years, she was beset by numerous physical problems related to aging, and endured surgeries for hip and knee replacement. Throughout this period she remained cheerful and upbeat, never losing her characteristic perseverance and determination to overcome adversity.
Fluent in several languages, she was the translator of French author Yves Ternon’s book “The Armenians,” a history of the Armenian genocide, a work published by Caravan Books.
Her outside interests were reading, international travel, gourmet cooking, and entertaining. She was a strong positive force in the lives of all whom she encountered.
She is survived by her husband, her daughter, her two brothers, her sister, two sisters-in-law, and many cousins, nieces and nephews.
A funeral service was held at the Aram Bedrosian Funeral Home in Watertown, Massachusetts on Saturday, November 18, conducted by the Rev. Dr. Avedis Boynerian of the Armenian Memorial Church of Watertown.