CHARLESTOWN, N.H. – Lois Kirsten (Moran) Corcoran, 62, passed away Saturday morning, July 18, 2026, at Cheshire Medical Center, with her husband and daughter by her side, after a sudden complication during her ongoing fight with cancer.
Born Dec. 21, 1963, in Ann Arbor, Mich., Lois was the firstborn child of Julie (Savi) Moran and the late William Moran. The Moran family settled in Hanover, N.H., in 1973, when Lois was 9 years old, and they lived in the Upper Valley for the remainder of her childhood. Graduating from Lebanon High School, Lois attended Tufts University and graduated cum laude from Keene State College with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She married Ken Corcoran on July 6, 1985, and moved to Charlestown, N.H., where they built a lifelong partnership and she became a mother to daughter Carolyn. Lois found happiness at her little log cabin in the woods, surrounded by nature, working in her garden, canning violet jelly in her kitchen with the flowers she picked from her yard, and enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment in mastering a new yoga pose or stacking wood preparing for New England’s next winter. You could find her taking long walks with her pets and her friends, spending time with loved ones over a meal and a cup of coffee, or with a cup of tea and a good book. Additionally, Lois vehemently advocated for the people, the politics, and the kind of world she hoped to leave behind; she was a woman with real tenacity, who never shied away from a passionate intellectual debate.
Lois is survived by her husband of 41 years, Kenneth Corcoran; her daughter, Carolyn (Corcoran) Russell; her son-in-law, Kurt Russell; her grandchildren, Harmony, Ilo, and Ondine Russell; her mother, Julie Moran; her brother, Gerald Moran; her sister, Laura (Moran) Henry; her brother-in-law, Thomas Henry; her nephew, Douglas; and her niece, Katherine Henry; as well as her dearest friends Mara Novak, Joanne Hipp, and so many more through the different seasons of her life.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105, www.stjude.org/donate/donate-to-st-jude.html.
A celebration of life will be held Sunday, Oct. 18, from 1-6 p.m., at 28 Fitch Reservoir Road, Claremont, N.H.