Melinda Carol Kohn

Melinda Carol Kohn - who died on Monday, February 21, 2022, in Allentown at the age of 74 - loved three things: her family, her friends, and butter.

Born in Philadelphia, she grew up in Penns Grove, NJ, where she worked the cash register at her father's store. Her gift with numbers and complicated formulas led her to become a mathematician and, eventually, a computer programmer.

In college, she met Donald J. Kohn at a mixer. She liked that he knew how to use chopsticks and shined his own shoes. This coming May, they would have celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary. Their only child, Sally Kohn of Brooklyn, NY, is 44 years old and brought them nothing but joy for about 22 of those years. Among those peak moments of joy was Sally settling down for eternity with her partner Sarah Hansen, and Sarah giving birth to Don and Melinda's granddaughter, Willa - who has brought them infinitely more joy in 13 years than Sally ever could. Melinda traveled every other week to New York to help take care of Willa for much of her early childhood. They would go to the carousel in Prospect Park and drink kombucha. You've never met a happier grandmother.

Both Melinda and her husband were the most LGBTQ supportive parents in the entire Lehigh Valley. They founded and supported numerous LGBTQ organizations in the area, including staffing the PFLAG phone for many years, helping many other parents try to become a fraction as wonderful as them.

Melinda was the first woman to work as a technical manager AT&T's prestigious Bell Laboratories. But her real passion professionally came when she was appointed as ombudsperson at AT&T and eventually Lucent and Agere. She loved helping workers find voice, power and justice within the corporate machinery.

After her retirement in 2000, Melinda continued to be of service to those in need - primarily through handicrafts. For instance, she sewed colorful uplifting pillowcases for domestic violence survivors, knit blankets with finger puppets on them for children placed in foster care, and once crocheted hundreds of matching pink scarves for an LGBTQ rights parade. It's impossible to count the number of people who were touched by Melinda's habitual generosity. In fact we can never count; most of her acts of kindness were done quietly and anonymously.

Which brings us to butter. Melinda loved butter. Not just any butter, but a particular very thick, very yellow, very fragrant raw butter that we can't tell you about or everyone will know. She spread it on everything and, no, she didn't die of a heart attack (it was cancer). Melinda loved to say that after taking a bite, if you couldn't see your teeth marks in the butter you clearly didn't use enough.

To those who love her, Melinda is butter, spread throughout the nooks and crannies of our hearts, making every moment feel richer, nourishing us, and staying with us long after we're done. She left a mark on so many lives. Her absence is profound.

Melinda is survived by her loving husband Don Kohn, her daughter Sally Kohn, her daughter-in-law Sarah Hansen, her granddaughter Willa Hansen-Kohn, her brother Sid Schnell and his wife Barbie Schnell (Wilmington, DE), and so many others.

Services: The family is holding private services. Arrangements by Bachman, Kulik & Reinsmith Funeral Home, Allentown.

Contributions: In lieu of flowers, please donate generously to the Sixth Street Shelter in Allentown, PA (https://sixthstreetshelter.caclv.org). And please, to celebrate Melinda's life and spirit, do something generous for a stranger, leave a 50% tip and eat a large amount of good butter. That's what Melinda would want.