Lois Schwaeber, 87, attorney, former director of legal services for The Safe Center LI

Lois Schwaeber was a domestic violence attorney by trade. But to her colleagues, she was a superhero.

“The people that she was working with referred to her as Wonder Woman,” said her son Phil Schwaeber. “They gave her a little Wonder Woman outfit.”

Lois Schwaeber, the former director of legal services for The Safe Center LI, died on June 2. The Roslyn resident was 87.

Schwaeber was born Lois Lipschitz in Brooklyn on March 7, 1936, and raised in an Orthodox Jewish home in Queens. Her grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi who brought his extended family and congregants over to America from Eastern Europe, according to Phil Schwaeber.

Lois Schwaeber graduated from Jamaica High School at age 16 and headed to Queens College. After graduation, she taught in schools on the Lower East Side.

“There were a lot of Puerto Rican immigrants at the time. Not all of them spoke English — or very much English — so it was definitely a challenge for her to do the teaching in an environment where some of the kids did not understand what she was saying,” her son said.

Schwaeber often went swimming with a friend but one day, due to a drought in New York City, the two women went bowling instead. It proved to be a good alternative: She met her future husband, Henry “Pat” Schwaeber, at the bowling alley. The two married in 1957 and welcomed Phil and three other children: Andrew, Marlene and Michael.

Schwaeber’s kids became her priority and she left teaching to focus on raising them. For many years, she drove around in a station wagon with a vanity plate reading 4KIDS.

“She was known around town with that license plate,” her daughter, Marlene Platkin, said.

When Schwaeber’s youngest child graduated high school, she began volunteering at the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which is now The Safe Center LI.

“I worked two or three days and met with people that were coming into court looking to get orders of protection and some moral support,” Lois Schwaeber told Newsday in April.

Schwaeber said she often wound up in the office on her days off, eager to learn more about the work she was doing. Her boss, Helen Scholfield, had gone back to school in her 50s to get a law degree and Schwaeber was inspired to do the same.

“My husband thought I was insane,” Schwaeber said.

Nevertheless, Schwaeber received her law degree from Touro Law Center at age 56.

“She didn't need to go to school to work,” Platkin said. “It was something she was passionate about.”

After graduating, Schwaeber briefly ran a domestic violence clinic in Suffolk County before returning to the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence to work as an attorney.

Nassau County District Judge Andrea Phoenix met Schwaeber in the courtroom and they soon became friends. Whenever Phoenix watched Schwaeber make presentations, she was awed by Schwaeber's eloquence and her dedication.

“[Domestic violence survivors] were very precious to her, very important,” Phoenix said. “It was very obvious and evident in all of the things that she said and all the moves and advances that she made legally.”

Schwaeber became the director of legal services for the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence in 2001. She often met with state and local politicians to advocate for better resources.

“She knew every county executive and she had been working with them to get more funding for the coalition,” Phil Schwaeber said.

Lois Schwaeber led the organization through its transition into The Safe Center LI and retired in 2020 at age 84.

Throughout her career, she received many accolades from organizations such as the Women’s Bar Association of New York, the Touro Law Center Alumni Council and the Nassau County Women’s Bar Association.

Former New York State Sen. Anna M. Kaplan passed New York State Senate Resolution #468 in honor of Schwaeber’s retirement and also selected her as a 2020 Women of Distinction honoree.

“She was a person who did not aim to be important, but indeed she was very important to so many,” Phoenix said. “All of us will always be indelibly touched by her goodness.”

Schwaeber is predeceased by her husband and survived by her children, two sisters and seven grandchildren.