Premalata (“Premu” or “Prema”) Ghimire, 75

July 26, 2023

Premalata (“Premu” or “Prema”) Ghimire, 75, of Lancaster, passed away on Wednesday, July 26, 2023.

Born in Biratnager, Nepal, she was the daughter of the late Rishikesh and Annapurna (Poudel) Koirala. She was the wife of Bishwanath U. Ghimire, and they were married for 53 years. Premu loved her husband, their two children, and their late cat Chyanti.

Premu was passionate about education. She was awarded the Mahendra Vidya Vhushan medal for her achievements at Banaras Hindu University. She went on to earn two additional master’s degrees: one in Philosophy from Emory University, where she attended through a Fulbright Scholarship award; and another in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College. At Bryn Mawr College, she earned her doctorate in Anthropology. She conducted her ethnographic fieldwork among the Satars of southern Nepal.

She found that every aspect of her life, not just her profession, was a teaching opportunity. For example, when her children did not want to go to bed, she took out one of her anthropology monographs (usually a book on the Nuer or the Azande by E. E. Evans-Pritchard) and read to her children passages from the books. The process had the intended effect: the children went on to bed. Outside of her children, she taught in the Department of Culture and History in at Tribhuwan University in Kirtipur, Nepal. She also taught Anthropology at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY, and at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, PA. She also taught Anthropology at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Dharan, Nepal. In the 2000s, she shifted careers and became an academic advisor to high school students at the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School in Petersburg, Virginia.

She was culturally curious, painted, loved travel and art, and appreciated painting, photography, reading, and writing. Premu spoke six languages: Nepali (mother tongue), Bengali, English, Maithili, Hindi, and Urdu. She enjoyed writing academically and creatively and is a published author. She had quite the green thumb. She loved gardening and taking care of plants. She enjoyed visiting with her family and getting to spend time with them.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her two children, Vipra (Dan Sayers) Ghimire and Vivek (Mercie) Ghimire; her granddaughter, Harper Ghimire; her brother, Umesh (Jaya) Koirala, and his children: Nagesh, Puru, and Bhaskar.

Services will be private.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Arthritis Foundation: https://www.arthritis.org/ways-to-give.