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Seeing with her heart: Blind social services worker remembered for her compassion

 

Published: Wednesday, May 04, 2011, 8:00 AM

Dave Person | Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette

By

Dave Person | Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette

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Lois Blocher

KALAMAZOO — Lois Blocher’s mission in life was to help other people overcome obstacles. As a career social services worker, two decades of which were spent

in Kalamazoo, she was met with great success, according to those who knew her.

 

“She was always working and always reaching out and always trying to help, so she was a good person for human services,” said Rebecca Moore, former head

of adult services at the Kalamazoo County Department of Social Services, where Blocher was employed from 1976 to 1996.

 

Blocher never let the fact that she had been blind since birth interfere with her efforts, although she sometimes wished she had sight so she could assist

others even more.

 

“She mentioned one day, ‘Some days I wish I had two good eyes.’ ... It was more in a sense that, ‘I could help people better ... if I was sighted.’ She

was just unselfish that way,” Moore said.

 

When Blocher retired, she moved to White Cloud to be close to her parents, and eventually to Cedar Springs to help care for her father after the deaths

of her mother and then stepmother. Blocher died in May 2010 of complications from diabetes. She was 65.

 

Still, her memory lives on, particularly in Kalamazoo, where she not only cared for clients at work, but also tried to make life better for people in general.

 

In 1980, the Quota Club of Kalamazoo named Blocher its Woman of the Year.

 

'She never gave up'

 

In announcing the recognition, the club cited not only her work as a service-intake screener with the DSS, but also her efforts as a member of the American

Council of the Blind and Michigan Association of Workers for the Blind, as a transportation steering committee participant and as a member of the Kalamazoo

Council for the Handicapped.

 

Blocher was a member of the Center for Independent Living and the Kalamazoo Federation for the Blind, also serving as a board member of Kalamazoo Handicappers

United.

 

“Lois was very persistent in her work; she never gave up,” Moore said. “I think she was a great inspiration to the people that she served and to other people.”

 

“She was usually an hour early for work and an hour or two late going home,” said Blocher’s father, LaVern. “She was overly conscientious.”

 

LaVern Blocher said his daughter remained in frequent contact with her parents and siblings throughout the years and shared her successes with them. One

story she shared, he said, involved a mother and adult daughter who hadn’t spoken for years. Blocher was able to help the daughter understand the immaturity

of her behavior, and she then reconciled with her mother.

 

Another time, Blocher’s father said, Lois was making a home visit in a high-crime area when she heard a conversation between two boys.

 

“One little boy said to another one, ‘Don’t you touch her, she helped my grandma,’” LaVern Blocher said.

 

“She always was a really good listener, and I think she had a good sixth sense about people,” said Kathy Dilsaver, a co-worker at the Kalamazoo DSS office.

 

“She was very observant,” LaVern Blocher agreed. “If she talked to you for a few minutes, she pretty much had you figured out.”

 

Blocher’s survivors, in addition to her father, are sisters and brother-in-law Kathy and John Plume, of Rockford, and Elizabeth Gitchel, of Howard City;

and brother and sister-in-law, LaVerne and Shelley Blocher, of Pentwater.

 

Blocher’s mother, Doris, and twin sister, Lucy, preceded her in death.

 

Seeing with her heart: Blind social services worker remembered for her compassion | MLive.com

http://www.mlive.com/living/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/05/seeing_with_her_heart_blind_so.html