Rachel Lesser

In the morning of May 5, 2025, the lights at the party grew just a bit dimmer. The life of every gathering, Rachel Lesser, 90, of Solon, Ohio, died peacefully in her bed of the effects of cancer. She was attended by family who had long loved her and caregivers who had fallen in love with her in her last months, spent made-up and dressed to the nines among the welcoming residents of the Vitalia Active Adult Community.

Rachel was born in 1934 in Cleveland, Ohio, daughter of Fanny and Louis Eisenberg. Fanny was the daughter of Eastern European immigrants who settled in Cleveland after a stint in West Virginia, and Louis had the standard American immigrant story of fleeing pogroms to American safety through Ellis Island in the 1920s. Rachel grew up in Cleveland’s Kingston neighborhood and moved as a child to Cleveland Heights, where she graduated from Cleveland Heights High among a coterie of loving friends who remained with her the rest of her life.

She spent many years working as a bookkeeper, where her keen eye and sharp mind allowed her to keep businesses healthy, especially Carroll Drug, owned by her brother, Ronnie, and the Hebrew Academy, where she combined her work with her love of her Jewish culture and background.

She married Edgar Huler in 1955. With him she raised three children: Michael, 67, of Columbus; Scott, 65, of Raleigh; and Lori, 63, of New York. Rachel made family the center of her life; her sister Arlene and brother Ronnie were as central to her life as her parents, and her children and their cousins grew up together in an atmosphere of love, laughter, and vast family affection. The closeness of siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles remains to this day a tribute to the connections she forged and is probably her proudest accomplishment.

After divorce she married Victor Lesser, the love of her life, in 1979, and

together they built a life of friendship, family, and approximately seventeen trillion cruises. She embraced Victor’s children, Cathy, 64, and Jeff, 62, as her own and though everyone never lived together as a Brady Bunch, framed photographs of their children and many grandchildren covered Rachel and Vic’s house.

Each of her children enjoyed a unique and deep connection with her and to each other. She was proud of Michael’s work as a teacher, especially his national board certification among the first nationwide group of math teachers; Lori’s accomplishments in Manhattan real estate, where she was a two-time winner of Deal of the Year; and Scott’s work as a writer of books and print and radio journalism. Of Vic’s children, law professor and opera composer Cathy, and Jeff, a musician, performer, and teacher, she was equally proud.

But as much as she loved her and Vic’s children and their various accomplishments, that all faded in comparison to her adoration of their many grandchildren, of whose accomplishments she was only too glad to inform you should you happen to drop a hat. They had in all eight beloved grandchildren: Benjamin and Rebecca, children of Michael (and his wife Ann Rottersman); Cooper and Allison, children of Lori (and her husband Todd Glick); Louis and Augustus, children of Scott (and his wife June Spence), and Sarah and Megan, daughters of Cathy.

Rachel will be remembered and admired above all for her fierce love and spirit, which became the glue of the lives of all she leaves behind. At her 90th birthday party in 2024 she gazed with joy as her children and grandchildren mingled, hugged, and laughed. She wanted most to build a family that loved each other; as her husband, her brother, her five children and their partners, her eight grandchildren, and uncountable aunts, uncles, cousins, and dear friends will attest, at that she succeeded entirely. We had enormous fun; she will be forever missed.

Service will be held Friday May 9 at 11 a.m. in the third floor demo kitchen of the Vitalia Active Adult Community in Solon, 6050 Kruse Drive, Solon, OH 44139. Shivah will follow until 6 pm.