The Rama Karamcheti Fund for Citizens Library was created by family to provide support to the reference and genealogy departments at Citizens Library while keeping Rama’s memory alive.
A long-time resident of Washington, PA who worked in the Reference Department of Citizens Library beginning in 1996, Rama passed away in 2013. It was while at Citizens Library that Rama developed a passion for genealogy. She cataloged many documents and helped many people across the country and even from across the globe to identify ancestors who had lived in the area.
Rama was born February 22, 1948 in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, India in her Praturi family home. Her father was a physician and career officer in the army of India and a veteran of World War II and her mother was a homemaker. Rama and her siblings were educated in private schools across northern India. The camaraderie and ceremonial life of the Indian army stayed with her all her life.
Rama was married in 1969 to Anand Karamcheti, MD and emigrated to the United States in 1972. After living in New York and Pittsburgh, she, her husband and their two sons Adi and Deepak, settled in Washington in 1977. Rama graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Library Science with a Masters in Library Science in 1982. In addition to Citizens Library, she worked as the head of the Reference Department at Ohio County Public Library in Wheeling, WV and at the Chartiers Houston Public Library.
Rama was many things: a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, friend and colleague. Above all, she was a general’s daughter with a passion for reading and learning, a firm believer in the transformative power of libraries, books and education. It is the hope of her family that active contributions to this fund will help to support a place and a cause that was most special to her, supporting Citizens Library.