Sharon Lynn Sohns

SHARON SOHNS began her 83-year journey in Missouri as Sharon Lynn Rotsch. She was a strong principled woman who lived life on her terms to the very end. This began when her parents told her they could only afford to send one child to university, her brother Phil. This did not deter her, she figured out how to get a full scholarship and graduated with Honors from the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. She married Jerry Sohns, when she was 21, her life-long love of 50 years. When he finished law school, they took off for Washington D.C. to change the world, and they never looked back. Living in D.C. for 20 years, she became a real politico, learning about D.C. politics, attending protests and inaugural balls. During this time, she also taught elementary school, and hadtwo children. She opened her home to family, and good friends returning from the Viet Nam war. Sharon survived the death of her only brother and her mother-in-law in these years. After 20 years, it was time for a change. Jerry transferred to Denver and the whole familylanded in Boulder, Colorado. Here she raised two kids, made dear friends, and suffered the loss of her only son. Sharon headed back to work via volunteering for various political campaigns and working part-time in sales. Eventually, she and Jerry began a small mom and pop handyman business. Sharon became a Master Gardener. Later, she cared for Jerry in the last years of his life until he died in 2009 from Lewy Body Dementia. At the beginning of 2011 she was recruited to be a peer counselor with the Longmont Senior Center. This is where she found a renewed passion for life, by helping others. She attended trainings, she co-facilitated grief groups, worked with individuals, and made the best circle of friends that she could have ever asked for. For the last decade of her life she experienced so much love and laughter through these amazing women. All of her women friends both from the senior center, as well as her life-long friends and her daughter, who was also a friend are what made her life so full to the very end. She left this life loving all of her friends and family and knowing that she was loved in return.