Alice Baghdassarian Granoff

On September 3, 2022, Dr. Alice Baghdassarian Granoff, 83, died peacefully with her family in Tucson, Arizona. She is survived by and was the loving and dedicated mother of twin sons, Jeffrey and Jonathan. She is also survived by daughter-in-law, Liza Granoff and grandchildren, Peter, Natalie, Callie, Colten, and Corrine Granoff.

Dr. Granoff was born in 1938 in Safed, Israel (then the British Mandate of Palestine) to Dr. Mugerditch Baghdassarian, an Armenian ophthalmologist, and the former Mary Bay, a pharmacy assistant. The family left Israel during the Arab-Israeli war that followed Israeli independence and traveled by donkey to Beirut, Lebanon. There, Dr. Granoff attended high school at the American School for Girls. She spoke four languages - English, Hebrew, Arabic, and French.

While in Lebanon, Dr. Granoff’s father died unexpectedly from heart disease and she emigrated to the United States as a teenager along with three older sisters and her mother, settling in Austin, Texas. Dr. Granoff enrolled as a pre-medical student at the University of Texas and graduated with a bachelor’s degree. She studied at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas earning an M.D. degree in 1963, where she was one of less than a handful of female medical students in her graduating class. Her post-graduate training consisted of an internship in Pediatrics at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri, three years of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, with the final year as Chief Resident of the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Outpatient Department. She completed three years of post-doctoral training in Pediatric Endocrinology at Johns Hopkins under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Blizzard, who was a 20th century pioneer developing new treatments for hormone disorders of children. At Johns Hopkins, she met and married Dr. Dan Granoff in 1971, who was completing his Residency in Pediatrics. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1985.

After faculty appointments in Pediatric Endocrinology at St. Christopher’s Hospital, and Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Alice Granoff practiced as a dedicated pediatrician and pediatric endocrinologist in St. Louis. During her approximately 40-year career, she helped thousands of young children with their underlying medical needs and was recognized as one of the leading pediatricians in St. Louis.

The three sisters who emigrated to the United States with Dr. Granoff also became highly educated and respected professionals. Athena “Tina” Piedrahita was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Louisiana in Baton Rouge. Dr. Olga Gatewood was a faculty member and radiologist at Johns Hopkins and appointed as the Director of the Division of General Radiology. Vartenik “Rose” Baghdassarian was a mathematician who taught at Harford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland.

In her retirement, Dr. Granoff was grateful to live in Basalt, Colorado for 18 years enjoying the mountains, her garden, and taking care of hummingbirds.

Dr. Granoff was preceded in death by her parents and her sisters, Lisa Baghdassarian, Tina Piedrahita, Dr. Olga Gatewood, and Rose Baghdassarian.