Laura Elizabeth Aral

Laura Elizabeth Aral, age 75, of North Palm Beach, Florida passed away on August 6th, 2025. She was a beloved mother and wife and leaves behind her husband, Ersin (Eric) Aral, her son, Kenny Aral, daughter-in-law, Debby Dowlin, and her grandson, Kellen Aral.

Laura was born on August 22nd, 1949 in New York City to Virginia and Robert Hannan. She spent her early years growing up in Little Neck, Long Island. After graduating from Manhasset High School, she went to college at St. Lawrence University where she spent her junior year in Spain as an exchange student, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971. After college she moved to Boston, MA and got a secretarial job in the Economics Department of Harvard University. While working at Harvard University, she spent most of her spare time taking yoga classes and a variety of dance classes. It was during this time that she joined a Turkish folk dance group which was practicing weekly and occasionally performing folk dances in various college and university campuses. This was how she met her husband, Ersin, through mutual friends at small gatherings of this group.

In 1978, after acceptance of her application, she studied at Boston College (BC) for the next two years, and graduated with an M.B.A. Degree in 1980. While attending BC, she and Ersin bought a house together in Reading, MA and were married in 1979. As a student at BC, she found her passion for software engineering. This came about while taking a class that was utilizing computers in quantitative analysis of financial problems. She suddenly realized that she was comfortable learning different computer languages and enjoyed programming and solving tasks in her field. After graduation, she was offered and accepted a job at Compugraphic, Inc. in North Reading as a Software Engineer. She worked at this company until her and Ersin decided to move to Florida for the warmer weather in 1984. They first rented a house in Juno Beach, and in 1985, they settled down in the Village of North Palm Beach where she spent the rest of her life.

After moving to Florida, Laura worked as a Software Engineer for Develcon, Inc. in Jupiter and later, as a Consultant/Senior Software Engineer for Telematics International, Inc. in Fort Lauderdale. She truly enjoyed her job and loved the problem solving that went along with programming and software development. After Telematics closed their office in Fort Lauderdale, she began working closer to home at the City of West Palm Beach as a secretary and then later at the Building Department for North Palm Beach. She always missed the thrill of solving difficult engineering problems, but filled some of that void by doing jigsaw puzzles at home in her spare time, as well as cryptograms and sudokus.

If you knew Laura, then you also knew there were two things that she loved almost more than anything else in the world: cats and coffee. Her love for these two things was directly linked to her childhood as she would frequently tell stories of her two cats that she had as a child, Skippy and Mercedes, and the trouble they would get into and how spoiled they were. When it came to coffee, she loved to reminisce about how drinking coffee would take her back to the times when she would drink coffee with her mother at the kitchen table over a nice conversation. Later, her family adopted a cat named Buddy who brought her so much joy. If she was home, the two of them were often inseparable. He was such a light in her life until his passing.

We will never forget the love and joy that Laura brought to all our lives. We will miss her bright smile that never left her until the end of her life and her never-ending love and compassion for all of her friends and family. She was an amazing wife and mother. Rest in peace.