Sharon L. Pedersen

Sharon Leslie Pedersen died January 15th 2017 of acute myeloid leukemia at age 73. She is survived by her husband Gary, four children: Evan (Mary), Liz (Koby Kampschroeder), Christian (Elizabeth), and Jonathan (Julie), ten grandchildren, a sister Sue Brown (Paul) and three brothers, Steven (Linda), David (Michel), and James (Lisa) Smith. She was preceded in death by her brother Dean, sister Riisa, and her parents Oscar and Delila Smith.

From the time she came to St. Louis in 1985, and for many years, she served on the board of the St. Louis Branch, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She worked as a high school English teacher and librarian, and a public librarian. She earned degrees in English, philosophy of education and history, library science and creative writing, and the Master Gardener certificate. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China, 2005-2006, and as a Peace Corps recruiter on the Washington University in St. Louis campus, 2010-2011.

She often said her retirement years since 1998 were the happiest and most satisfying in an ordinary good life. Until the leukemia diagnosis, she danced Saturday nights with International Folk Dance Association of St. Louis. She learned about native MO gardening weeding the Roger Pryor Memorial Garden at the Green Center in University City, became a Master Gardener, 2004, in the Missouri Botanical Garden program, and volunteered Tuesdays at Litzsinger Road Ecology Center. She served as a sponsor in the international Women group of the Washington University Woman’s Club, welcoming young women from all over the world to her home Fridays for holiday crafts, canning parties and potlucks. She was a member of the St. Louis Chapter, Wild Ones native Plant Society, and in 2007 established her One Hundred Species yard of MO native trees, bushes, vines, grasses and wildflowers at her home, and regularly welcomed garden tour visitors. Until her illness she was an active member of Ethical Society of St. Louis. Her life was enriched by relationships with family and many dear friends and she will be greatly missed.

An open house reception will be held from 3-5pm with a memorial service immediately following at 5pm on Saturday January 28th, 2017 at the Frontenac Chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints located at 10445 Clayton Road, St. Louis, MO 63131. All are welcome to come and celebrate her rich and wonderful life.

To honor our wife and mother please consider a gift to the Missouri Botanical Garden Institutional Advancement. P.O. Box 299 St. Louis, MO 63166. “In Memory of Sharon Pedersen, Litzsinger Road Ecology Center”