On July 4, 2017, Leah Rochon died after a months-long battle with cancer. She is survived by her husband, Des, daughter Ingrid, and the hundreds of children whose lives she improved through her 22 years of service as a teacher at Ferndale’s Eagleridge Elementary School.
Leah’s love of reading and education was a thread that ran throughout her entire life. Leah’s first career as a technician at the Fairhaven Library lasted nearly a decade. She met and married the librarian’s mailman, Desmond Rochon, in 1987. She remains, in his eyes, “the smartest woman I ever knew.” Leah earned her teaching degree and began her second career as a public school teacher in the early 1990s. A generation of Ferndale students laughed at her jokes, listened to her stories, and learned from her gentle discipline. Her greatest delight was reading to her students — she always used character voices.
Greatly missed by her family, Leah will forever be remembered by them as “TERRIFIC,” “RADIANT” and unfailingly “HUMBLE.” She was in a class by herself. “By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”
Memorial donations in memory of Leah may be made to the Prevent Cancer Foundation (www.preventcancer.org) or to the Audubon Society in honor of the love for animals she instilled in both her students and her own daughter (www.audubon.org).
Please share your thoughts and memories of Lean online at www.sigsfuneralservices.com.
