Edwin Bomba, 61, advocate for many in need

Edwin "Ed" Bomba, 61, of Philadelphia, an advocate for the disabled, people with AIDS, and those with alternative lifestyles - especially as they aged - died of complications from surgery Wednesday, Feb. 17, at Pennsylvania Hospital.

Mr. Bomba was "there from the very get-go" for those fighting AIDS, said longtime friend Heshie Zinman. Diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s, Mr. Bomba had hearing loss and was partially blind. He used a cane to get around and in the last year was aided by a service dog named Cooper.

Mr. Bomba retired after years of working as a communications specialist for GTE, North American Phillips, and others, but he was best known for his efforts as a volunteer for nonprofit. He was one of a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender adults who noticed that the needs of older LGBT individuals were not being met by social service agencies and institutions.

"They were not so adept at treating LGBT people because they didn't understand our language," Zinman said. "The whole aging system out there was unaware what our lives looked like as LGBT aging people."

In 2010, the group formed a nonprofit, the LGBT Elder Initiative, to deal with those concerns. Zinman became the board chair and Mr. Bomba the group's communications chair.

The Elder Initiative's goal was to ensure that those with alternative lifestyles had the same rights and opportunities to "age successfully" as others, Zinman said. The group circulated information and pressed for culturally appropriate services for the LGBT community.

In 2014, for instance, the Elder Initiative and the Alzheimer's Association's Delaware Valley Chapter sponsored classes for the LGBT community on recognizing and coping with Alzheimer's disease.

Mr. Bomba, the publicist for the project, told The Inquirer in a story published April 16, 2014, that while dementia was devastating for everyone, it incurred special problems for elderly people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Many had never come out of the closet and feared discrimination by medical or social service providers or even fellow residents of nursing homes.

"We don't have children, as a rule. We don't have partners, as a rule, as we age," Mr. Bomba said. Rejected by their families, many instead created support systems of friends.

It was especially important for LGBT elders to recognize the signs of cognitive decline.

"We're trying to educate the community so that we can watch out for each other," he said.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Bomba graduated from Haverford Senior High School in 1972, the University of Delaware in 1976 with a bachelor's degree in political science, and earned a master's of business administration from Pennsylvania State University in 1980.

For many years, Mr. Bomba taught a weekly class on AIDS at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pa., said Ronda B. Goldfein, executive director of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, who spoke to his class each year.

"We would leave Philadelphia while it was still dark and head out to Annville on the turnpike," she said. "Ed was always so excited. For him, the class was an opportunity to talk about living with HIV, but also about prevention and the wrongfulness of discrimination."

Those car rides resulted in creation of a legal clinic for LGBT seniors for whom, over the last three years, the AIDS Law Project has drafted hundreds of free wills, living wills, and power-of-attorney documents.

"Ed had a low-key way of asking for what he wanted, and it was almost never for himself," Goldfein said. "No one could refuse him."

His sister Katherine Newell said Mr. Bomba was the "central force" in his family. "He knew what everyone was doing. We miss him very much," she said.

Besides his sister Katherine, he is survived by his mother, Thelma Burket Bomba, 92; sisters Marguerite Bomba, Monica Poulin, Cynthia Scharringhausen, and Linda Bomba; and a brother, John Bomba.

Plans for a memorial service were pending.

Donations may be made to: The Seeing Eye Inc., 10 Washington Valley Rd., Morristown, N.J. 07960, or via www.seeingeye.org; the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Elder Initiative via www.lgbtei.org; or the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania via www.aidslawpa.org.

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