Celebration of life planned for yoga pioneer Lilias Folan

Lilias Folan, the yoga pioneer often called America’s best-known yoga teacher, will be honored with a Celebration of Life on Saturday, May 16, at 10 a.m. at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Terrace Park, 100 Miami Avenue, with a gathering afterward for people who want to share stories.

Folan died on March 9, 2026, in Loveland, Ohio, at age 90, closing a career that helped make yoga feel familiar to millions of Americans. Her family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, those who want to honor her do so by embracing practices that bring peace, health and kindness into the world, a request that fits the teaching she spent decades modeling.

Long before yoga was a mainstream studio class, Folan was bringing it into homes through Lilias, Yoga and You. The program began on Cincinnati’s WCET-TV in 1970, then was picked up for national PBS distribution in 1972 and eventually reached about 190 PBS stations nationwide. Some accounts say the series ran until 1999, making it one of public television’s longest-running and most successful yoga programs.

Her path into yoga started in 1964, when a doctor recommended exercise during a period of postpartum depression. Born Lilias Antoinette Moon on January 13, 1936, in Boston, she later attended Bennington College, married transportation executive L. Robert Folan and raised two sons, Matthew and Michael. Cincinnati coverage also described her as an Indian Hill mother of two, former fashion model and artist, a mix of experiences that helped make her presence on camera feel both polished and approachable.

That accessibility became part of her lasting influence. PBS has featured Folan in recent programming that highlighted more than 40 years of teaching and her beginner-friendly style, while other accounts note that she led workshops, wrote books and continued shaping how practitioners thought about home practice, chair-based yoga and simple instruction that met people where they were.

For the Cincinnati yoga community, Saturday’s service is more than a farewell. It is a chance to gather in Terrace Park and remember the teacher who helped move yoga from an unfamiliar idea to a living-room practice, then spent a lifetime showing that it could be practical, welcoming and deeply human.