Fighting for her causes
Social activist, 76, still lobbies hard

By Denise Dub, Globe Correspondent

BEDFORD -- Without the aid of an alarm clock, Lois Pulliam usually awakens at 6:30 a.m., has a simple breakfast, reads the newspaper, and hops on the 8 a.m. bus to Boston.

Never one to waste a moment, the 76-year-old Pulliam does a crossword puzzle on the bus and takes
along a book to read when she has finished.

When she reaches Boston, she is likely to go to the State House for a meeting of Planned Parenthood,
the abortion-rights group Coalition for Choice, or a legislative hearing.

''Or I could be lobbying for gender-free insurance, or for emergency contraception, a bill before the
State House now, or for more budget allocated for mental health. I've lobbied for all of those," she said.

It's a typical day for Pulliam -- a former educator, mother of six children, Democratic activist, and advocate
 for the mentally ill -- whom friends describe as ''tireless" and an ''unpaid lobbyist for social causes."

''It's tough to keep up with her," son Jonathan said of his mother, who sleeps just five hours a night.

Her drive to be socially responsible started when she was a youngster in Irvine, Ky. She joined the
League of Women Voters at age 18.

''I joined in 1947," Pulliam said, ''before I was old enough to vote. Because I thought that people ought
to be informed before they voted. That's why women fought to get the vote."

After attending Missouri and Kentucky colleges for her bachelor's degree, she went on to Syracuse
University for her master's degree. Eventually she worked as assistant dean at Simmons College,
married Brown Pulliam in 1955, and then taught psychology at Mitchell College in New London, Conn.

In 1960, the Pulliams made their way to Concord Road in Bedford, where they raised their six children.

She helped organized Bedford's Friends of the Library, and she and her husband were copresidents
of the PTA while their children were in school.

''I didn't work for pay," she said of those years bringing up children.

In 1972, she volunteered for the Women's Center at Middlesex Community College.

''It devoted itself to courses and issues and conferences and workshops for women who were going
back into the workforce," she said.

''We were one of the first, if not the first, in the country," she said of the women's center. She was on the
board and taught in the department of continuing education for about 10 years.

Pulliam is still a member of the League of Women Voters and the Association of American Universities.
She is chairwoman of the Unitarian Universalist Denomination Affairs Committee, and serves on the
church's Social Responsibilities Committee. She has also worked on the Council for Human Relations
for the last 40 years, and was a Massachusetts delegate at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

One of her longest-running causes is mental health. A few weeks ago, at a gathering of social activists at Bedford's First Parish, she spoke about her journey as an advocate for the mentally ill.

Dressed in her customary sweater and long skirt, the petite, gray-haired woman told the audience that she
and her husband began their involvement in 1976, when her third child, then a teenager, started showing
signs of what they eventually learned was schizophrenia.

She pulled out her college psychology books and began identifying her son's behaviors. After pinpointing a diagnosis, visiting numerous area hospitals, and talking with other concerned parents, Pulliam helped
obtain a grant from the Mental Health Association for family support groups.

''We had meetings twice a month and asked professionals in the area to talk with us about medication, diagnosis and prognosis, Social Security, housing, rehabilitation, and all the other topics that we had
questions about and couldn't get answers to," Pulliam said.

In Wisconsin, other parents had formed a similar group. The two created a coalition 25 years ago that eventually became the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which now has more than 1,000 affiliates
across the country.

Pulliam served as the national group's first president, and later she became a member of its curriculum
and training committees for mental health professionals.

''NAMI members felt that the institutions that were training doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, and social workers were not using up-to-date information about major mental illness," she said.

Pulliam later pressed the state for money to create the 12-week course, Journey of Hope, an educational program for families with mentally ill relatives.

Their son now lives in a group home in Lexington, but she is still teaching the course to struggling parents
and will start another session next month.

After a full day of lobbying in Boston, Pulliam gets back on the bus, picks up the crossword from another newspaper and, once finished, goes back to reading her book.

After supper, she usually attends a parish council meeting, choir practice, or another meeting.

When asked if there is anything she doesn't do or like, she replied without hesitation: ''I hate housework. Nobody would ever get me a gold star for housekeeping."

Portraits is an occasional series profiling people going about their daily lives in the region.