Louise L. Fisher, advocate for disabled

Louise Lundblad Fisher of Bloomfield, a longtime advocate for the disabled, died on Thursday, Oct. 16, at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford. She was 55 years old and the wife for 21 years of George M. Fisher.
Mrs. Fisher lived in Ridgefield as a young woman. When she was 15 years old, she had broken her neck while diving off a boat in Lake Champlain, and lost the use of both legs and a hand.
Despite having to use a wheelchair, she graduated from college, became an editor at Xerox, and finally operated her own consulting firm.
“Being disabled doesn’t completely inhibit you if you don’t let it,” Louise Lundblad told a Press reporter in 1972. “There are things you have to give up, of course. But it means that you are physically, but not mentally, disabled. You learn to develop other interests.”
Born in Hamden, Mrs. Fisher was the daughter of Linea Gustafsen Lundblad of Ridgefield and the late Frank Lundblad. She came to Ridgefield in 1968 and had lived in Farmington for some years before moving to Bloomfield 20 years ago.
Mrs. Fisher graduated from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield with a bachelor of arts in English. After graduation, she became a receptionist at the Ridgefield Town Hall. She later worked for Xerox for 22 years, first as an editor and then as a quality control specialist.
In 1978, she took a year’s leave of absence from Xerox to work with the Connecticut Coordinating Committee of the Handicapped to set up a model home for the handicapped in Hartford, the first house of its kind in the state.
“I have always been concerned with the issue of independent living for the handicapped,” she said in an interview that year. “I don’t think the general public is intentionally overlooking the problems of the handicapped — they just don’t know what our problems really are.”
After retiring from Xerox, she started Progressive Attitudes, a consulting firm for businesses with employees with disabilities.
As an advocate for people with disabilities, she was a program coordinator for the Connecticut Youth Leadership Forum, served on the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Independent Living in Wethersfield, and the Connecticut Institute for the Blind/Oak Hill, was a candidate for the U.S. Para Olympic Equestrian Team, and was a past president of the Women with Disabilities Network for the State of Connecticut.
In 1980, Governor Ella Grasso presented her with the Handicapped Employee of the Year award for “fortitude and determination in overcoming personal handicaps.”
Mrs. Fisher also served as a juror for The Hartford Courant’s annual Tapestry Awards, which recognize an individual or organization each year for their contributions to the community.
Besides her husband and her mother, Mrs. Fisher is survived by a cousin, Karen Baldwin and her husband Robert of Farmington.
A memorial service took place Wednesday, Oct. 22, at the NEAT (New England Assisted Technology) Market Place on the grounds of the Connecticut Institute for the Blind/Oak Hill, in Hartford.
Donations in her memory may be made to NEAT Market Place, 120 Holcomb Street, Hartford, CT 06112.