Chrys Ingraham

Chrys (nee Christine) Ingraham, 76, of DeWitt, passed away May 2024. She was diagnosed with metastatic ovarian cancer and treatment began in 2020. Thanks to the amazing and caring work of Dr. Agarwal’s gynecological oncology team—Rebekah, Paula, and Kristen and the nursing staff at Upstate’s Cancer Center– she was able to survive several years. She also received support from all the staff at Upstate especially Dr. Frechette and his team.

Chrys graduated from West Genesee High School in 1965. She was predeceased by her parents, June and Fred Ingraham of Camillus. She is survived by the most loving, kind and generous family– her sister, Laurie (Loren) James and brother, Mark (Marybeth) Ingraham. She is also survived by her nephews, Jason (Jill) and Chris (Rachel) Kantak and their beautiful children—Jonah, Jared, and Jadyn, Trevor and Alex Kantak, Kassidy Loose and Jonathan J. Ingraham.

Chrys began her work life at Mohawk/Allegheny/USAIR in1968, co-owned a feminist bookstore in Liverpool in 1975, and returned to college in 1980. She graduated from Onondaga Community College and Syracuse University and went on to earn a Master’s in Public Administration and in Sociology, a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies, and a Ph.D. in Sociology. Dr. Ingraham taught at many colleges and held tenured full professor positions at Russell Sage College (Troy, NY) and SUNY Purchase, where she was Chair of the Sociology program until retiring in 2024. During her time at Russell Sage, she was Director of Women’s Studies, cofounded with Tonia Blackwell The Allies Center for the Study of Difference and Conflict, the Allies Choir, and with Dr. Eileen Brownell the Management and Social Responsibility major. In addition, she co-founded with the Curriculum Committee the Women Changing the World general education courses. At Purchase College she rebuilt the Sociology program and co-founded the Latin American Studies major. She also published three books and numerous articles and book chapters with a focus mostly on gender, race, and social inequality.

At the end of her career Ingraham was frustrated with how students had become less interested in discovery and taught courses in Astrosociology, Conflict Management and Mediation, and Critical Race Theory. Students were introduced to important knowledges that are often relegated to the margins of mainstream research. The effect was that they became interested in learning again. Always pushing the boundaries of mainstream courses, Ingraham frequently engaged students with nontraditional practices.

One of her books, White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture, questioned the state’s involvement in personal relationships, sexism, racism and consumerism underlying the wedding industrial complex. She never married but had several long-term relationships, and to this day they remain framily. She is also survived by two extraordinary heart-daughters, Kate Hennessy-Fiske Bostelmann, and Molly Hennessy-Fiske, who she helped raise with their mom, Rosemary Hennessy.

Chrys’s loving framily includes two sisters from another mother—Kathleen Spencer, Susan Hillery (BFFF), and Renee Mooney. In her many years in Syracuse, Albany/Troy, Purchase, and Stuyvesant, NY and with love and gratitude her framily includes, Eileen Brownell, Rosemary Hennessy, Donna Inglima, Layne Hamilton, Debbie Hedberg, Toni Blackwell, Darlene Van de Grift, Jackie Schmitt, Kristen Karlberg, the Vlacancich clan, the Amuso family, the Brownell family, Steve Seidman, Lisa Jean Moore, Matthew Immergut, Alexis Silver, Diane Ogno, Debra Lee Gertz, Judy Dell’uomo, Lisa Sacco, Vicky Weir, John and Heidi Withers, Peter Shaw. John Spencer, Nadine Sullivan, Caroline Brackett, Patrick Shaw, the Clardy Harris family, and Josh Clardy-Harris, Lori Clark, Karen Fernandez Cosgrove, Karen Parkhurst, Jane Hugo, Hope Wallis, Deborah Pellow, Joni and Kenny Dacher-Shapiro, Linnea Jatulis, Marj Devault, Scott Mooney, David Bertelli, Maggie Dulaney, Janice Crawford, Karen Mihalyi, Carol Resnick, Karen Kerney, Sarah Fries, and Chrys’s many colleagues and friends in Syracuse, Stuyvesant, Russell Sage College, SUNY Purchase, the Dewittshire neighbors, the psychic/medium YouTube community, and “her guys” Pete and Alex Toth.