Yadollah "Yadi" Delaviz

Yadollah “Yadi” Delaviz, born on October 17, 1949 in Basht in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, Iran, to Safar and Khanom Jan Delaviz, passed away on November 29, 2017, surrounded by his family. He lived a full and fantastic life for 68 years. He was a beloved father and family member, devoted and revered friend, and trusted and admired colleague.

Yadi was the oldest of nine children and was born to a family of very modest means in rural Iran. He started helping his family at a young age by working as a shepherd for the family livestock. Soon thereafter he started to go to school and immediately exceled in the classroom. For the next 25 years, Yadi was a relentless student, knowing he could best assist and serve those he loved by educating himself. Yadi’s challenges were countless – he had to move away from home at a young age in order to attend middle school – and were only exceeded by his successes. Yadi graduated high school as the top student in the province, and then graduated from college in Iran with a degree in chemistry. Until the end of his life, Yadi was in close contact with dozens of his dear friends from that period in his life.

After graduating from college, Yadi served in the Iranian military, as all young men in Iran are conscripted to do. He reflected on those two years as light hearted ones during which he laughed continuously at the irreverent hijinks and mischief of his friends. For the entirety of his life, Yadi was committed to peace. He hoped for a world free of conflict and suffering and instead filled with understanding and compassion.

After college, Yadi received a master’s degree and then worked as a chemistry professor in Iran as at the University of Ahwaz. There, he developed friendships with his colleagues and students that, like the friendships from every other phase of his life, endured the duration of life. Yadi was politically active in Iran and fervently believed in the simple belief that his compatriots in Iran deserved political justice – freedom, peace and opportunity. Yadi’s activism and commitment to those fundamental political beliefs put his life in danger, but he never wavered.

In 1984, Yadi, his wife, Shohreh, and two sons, Damoun and Hamoun, moved to the United States, and in 1989, Yadi graduated from Syracuse University with a Ph.D. in chemistry. Yadi and Shohreh welcomed their third child, a daughter named Dena, to their family in 1990. Yadi’s career took the family to Blacksburg, Virginia, and Seminole, Florida, and the family eventually settled in Granville, Ohio in 1995, where Yadi worked for Owens Corning as a research scientist until his death. Yadi enjoyed the thought provoking challenges of his work every day and was proud of the efforts he and his colleagues made to make the world a better, more advanced, and more environmentally friendly place. Despite his tremendous accomplishments, Yadi remained humble. During the course of his career, he earned approximately 40 patents, and he refrained from sharing news of these accomplishments with friends or family.

Yadi ardently loved his friends and held them close. He kept in close contact with his friends around the world, even those he hadn’t seen for years. When reunited with them, it was as though they had been together despite the years apart. Yadi encouraged those around him to support and love one another, and he continuously reiterated the importance of taking nothing in life for granted. He loved and admired his adopted home in the United States and his homeland of Iran always stayed dear to his heart. He looks forward to a day when the people of Iran will have the freedom, peace and opportunity they, like the rest of the world’s citizens, so rightly deserve.

Yadi was an ardent believer in equality. Many of the women in his life, including his wife, his daughter, his sisters and his sisters in law, considered him a true feminist. His sister in law once remarked to him that she considered Yadi to be her greatest champion. Yadi loved political debate and often found himself at parties discussing Iranian, American or global politics. Yadi also often became the life of social gatherings where he’d be asked to share his newest jokes. He kept a collection of his jokes in spiral-bound notebooks, which he entitled “Organic Chemistry Volume I” and “Organic Chemistry Volume II.”

Yadi treasured being active on a daily basis. He cherished his daily walks with the love of his life, his wife Shohreh. He loved gardening around the house and surprising his wife with bouquets, which he picked from his yard full of flowers. Yadi would entertain his kids by walking on his hands at their soccer practices, would walk tens of thousands of steps a day, even during the years of his fight with cancer, and would ride his bike around the neighborhood. As he traveled the world during his life, he enjoyed walking throughout a city for days on end to gain a truer understanding of the city. As a testament to his passion for learning and living a full life, during the past few years, Yadi learned to play the setar, a classical Iranian instrument. Yadi joked that those around him should put cotton balls in their ears as he practiced the setar, but everyone loved to hear him play.

Last, but not least, Yadi loved and revered his family. His wife, Shohreh, was his partner, and together they lived a life filled with love, triumph and happiness. She will miss him dearly and will love him forever. His children, Damoun, Hamoun and Dena, were his world, and he made countless sacrifices for them. They will love him forever and will honor him by living lives that he raised them to live – full of love and dedication. Shohreh, Damoun, Hamoun and Dena are heartbroken, but are overcome with the tremendous outpouring of love and support from family and friends.

Ultimately, Yadi did everything big and small with immense intention and effort. Those who love Yadi know that he triumphed in his battle with cancer by living his life so fully and so lovingly. Yadi is survived by his wife, Shohreh Hassanizadeh, and his children, Damoun, Hamoun, and Dena.

As a testament to the person that Yadi was, there will be three memorials held around the world to honor his exceptional life. Six brothers, two sisters, countless cousins, nephews, nieces and friends who survive him will hold memorial services in his homeland of Iran.

Funeral services for Yadi in the United States will be held at the Schoedinger Worthington Chapel, 6699 North High Street, in Columbus, Ohio, at 11:00 am on Saturday, December 2, 2017. The family will receive friends after the service until 1:30 pm. Burial will follow at 2:00 pm at Kingwood Memorial Park, 8230 Columbus Pike (U.S. Route 23) in Lewis Center, Ohio.

Yadi dedicated his life’s work to research and scientific progress. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Yadi’s honor and memory to the American Cancer Society.

Schoedinger Worthington Chapel has been entrusted with services.