Albert (“AL”) Hausfather passed away peacefully on May 5, 2026 at the age of 83, after spending one week at St. Mary’s Hospital in Montreal, surrounded by his family. He battled Parkinson’s Disease for 26 years, during which his wife Angeles took care of him until the very end. His love of people and his resolve to live were so strong that even when dementia increasingly took hold, he still recognized and responded to loved ones and up to his very last day he shed tears and gave other signs of awareness of their presence.
AL was a loving and affectionate husband and father, fully devoted to his family. He was also fully devoted to the people whom he helped as a child psychiatrist, as a psychotherapist for families, couples, and individuals, and as a consultant community psychiatrist at youth centres and schools before his retirement 14 years ago. He spent more than three decades working at the Child and Adolescent Clinic (MUHC) with the child psychiatry outpatient multidisciplinary team. There, he sustained deep collaborative, collegial, and personal relationships with other mental health professionals. Throughout the years, the Child and Adolescent Clinic hosted a multitude of residents and interns in child psychiatry, psychology, and social work, for whom he facilitated a nurturing, academically stimulating, and clinically challenging environment to enrich their training.
AL was born in Brooklyn, New York, and from his young adulthood was passionate about social justice, joining causes consistent with his deeply-set social and political progressive views. No matter where he was, he said what he thought and he stood up for what he believed in. In his early 20s, he was one of the ‘freedom riders’ who travelled to Mississippi with the civil rights movement for equal voting rights for African-Americans. While in medical school in Chicago, he joined a group of physicians for social justice. In 1969, he emigrated to Montreal to avoid the draft to the Vietnam War, of which he was a strong political dissenter.
AL was authentic and direct, kind and empathic. He was down-to-earth and quick to forgive, unable to hold grudges. He was thrifty yet generous, always eager to help a friend or colleague in need—whether with house repairs, health issues, or family and work situations. He drove his children back and forth hundreds of times to soccer and hockey games and practices, cheering them on from the sidelines. His quirky sense of humor and enormous silliness inspired giggles and laughter over the years, up to his last weeks. He loved his life with his family and close friends, with whom he shared country cabins, camping, hiking, cross-country skiing, holidays, and parties. He enjoyed science fiction, Broadway and music from the sixties, watching football and tennis, being a handyman, and talking about history, politics, and psychotherapy. His knowledge and intellect was impressive, but he was humble. He was in tune with and expressive of his emotions, often visibly moved to tears during a meaningful conversation or movie. He was a great listener, even throughout the progressing discomfort of his disease, as if he harboured inside a place of deep calm from which he could provide comfort and unconditional acceptance to others. He was a people’s person and his home was open to anyone, a joy he shared with his wife and soulmate of 49 years with whom he also shared work, family, friends, values, and ways of life.
This world needs more men like him and he will be sorely missed by all the many people who loved him. He leaves behind his wife Angeles; his kids Nadia and Diego; his grandchildren Canek, Mateo, and Tatiana; his siblings Ken, Sam, and Robin; and a multitude of beloved in-laws, nieces, and nephews in Montreal, the United States, and Spain. Special warm thanks to Ouma, Sita, and Maryse who provided invaluable, loving home caregiving assistance over his last two years, as did the home-based palliative care team from the CLSC Côte-des-Neiges during his final month.
We will always love and miss him and cherish his memory by living by what we learned from him. In lieu of flowers, if you would like to give something in AL’s honor, feel free to give a donation to Centraide or Sun Youth.
