Florence Fournier

Florence Mary Sharp Fournier, a native Detroiter who also made homes in Canada and Florida, whose long and loving marriage served as an example for her four children, a wise and wise-cracking ringleader at work and home who had a gift for making everybody around her thrive, passed on Monday, March 28, 2022. She was 79.

Asked shortly before her death how she would like to be described, Flo replied: “A mother. A good person.” Her family and friends remember her as a great mother and a person full of goodness and grace.

Flo was born and raised on Coram Street in the northeast corner of her beloved Detroit, cattycorner from her future husband, Ronald E. Fournier. Flo and Ron played together as children – their parents were close friends and neighbors – and they started dating in high school. “After we dated each other’s friends,” Flo said years later, “we decided the cream rose to the top.”

The two were married September 29, 1962, and soon they bought their own home on Coram Street, where they raised their four children in the close-knit neighborhood. Flo had graduated from Denby High School in 1960, where she studied journalism, and set aside her love of writing to start a family.

After giving birth to four children in her first five years of marriage, Flo worked a series of jobs in the neighborhood and finished her career at St. John’s Hospital in Detroit, where she worked with her husband and many friends. In 1970, the couple bought a cottage on the lake near Harrow, Ontario, and for more than 30 years spent most weekends and every summer at “Erie House,” where Flo, Ron and their children made lifelong friends and memories.

Upon retirement, Flo and Ron spent their winters in Florida, where they made many more friends and took up a new hobby: Drinking beers and reading books, alone together on beaches and in small, remote parks.

Theirs was a true love story. Flo and Ron knew how to make each other laugh and delighted in each other’s jokes. They shared many loves: of sports; of card games; of country music; of summer storms over a choppy lake; of newspapers and books; of God and their country; and of their many friends and beloved family.

Asked recently what she was most proud of, Flo replied: “My choice of a husband.” She was proud, too, of the four strong marriages built by her children, nearly 100 years combined, all following her example.

Ronald Earnest Fournier died in March 2014 of Lewy Body Dementia and left behind a determined widow. Flo reconnected with old friends, helped her children and grandchildren navigate life’s transitions, and fought a series of health issues with grace and selflessness.

In addition to her husband, Flo was pre-deceased by her parents, William Thomas Sharp and Mary Ilene McLeod Sharp, and her brother, William Norman Sharp.

Flo is survived by four children Ron Fournier (Lori), Tim Fournier (Ingrid), Mike Fournier (Rose), and Raquel Fournier McElhone (Jerry); grandchildren, Holly Flickinger (Tom), Gabrielle Nebeker (James), Tyler, Talea, Rebecca Younkin (Chase), Nick, Emily, and Daniel; two great-grandchildren Gabriel and Grace Flickinger; and her beloved sister in law Dorothy Neate (Jim) and their children Krysten Richards and Bryan Neate; and many beloved nieces and nephews.

Flo rejected caveats for family: The people who have married into the family, and their children, are not “in-laws” or “steps,” they are her daughters and sons and grandkids – period.

Flo was not afraid of death because, even as her health declined, she had no doubt about what comes next. “I’m not sad,” she said in December. “It’s just the next step.”

Her confidence sprang from a conversation she had with her husband shortly before his 2014 death. As she told one of her children: “Your dad had a moment of clarity and told me that it would be a different road, but that he’d always be behind me, supporting me, and that we’d see each other again.”

Then she smiled and said, “I’m looking forward to seeing him.”

The family will host a gathering of friends from 4:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m., Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in A.H. Peters Funeral Home (20705 Mack Avenue, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI 48236). A mass for Florence will be celebrated at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 31, 2022 in St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church (22412 Overlake Street, St. Clair Shores, MI 48080).