Rochelle G. Stein

Rochelle (“Shelly”) G. Hilsberg was born January 22, 1941, in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Vivian (Silberlight) Hilsberg and George Hilsberg. Sadly, she passed away August 22, 2025 from congestive heart failure. She died peacefully in her sleep in Temple Terrace, FL. She was 84 years old.

Shelly earned her BA in Elementary Education from Brooklyn College in June 1961, her MA in Elementary Education from Hofstra University in May 1977 and completed Post Graduate Studies in Special Education in 1979. Her teaching career spanned 22 years in New York and Florida. She taught K-12, Learning Disabled, and Gifted Students helping to shape the lives of thousands of children.

She married her predeceased ex-husband Alan M. Stein on June 17, 1961, and they shared 57 happy years together. Alan and Shelly made their first home in Flushing, New York. In 1968, they moved to Plainview, New York to raise their two sons before relocating to Fort Lauderdale (now Davie) Florida in 1984.

Shelly was the consummate extrovert, always making a point to connect with and befriend strangers every place she visited. Her positive outlook and thirst for knowledge kept her current and engaging right up to the very end.

Some of Mom's favorite things were building puzzles, playing Boggle, Mahjong, and Backgammon, watching TV Game Shows, meeting her former students and hearing about their adventures, careers, and families, traveling, cruising, Red Fish, chocolate licorice, and making Matzah Ball Soup.

Following their retirement, Mom and Dad worked very hard to improve the quality of life of military personnel by sending care packages to service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. They raised over $50,000 for military-focused projects and charitable programs. In 2010, they were both chosen as the U.S. Navy's nominees for the Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher Distinguished Civilian Humanitarian Award, an award that recognizes an individual or organization that has demonstrated exceptional patriotism and humanitarian concern for members of the armed forces and their families. Together, and at their own expense, they shipped more than a thousand boxes of books to U.S. and NATO Navy ships and submarines, the U.S. Coast Guard, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Bethesda Navy Medical Center and three Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs).

Her smile, storytelling, and kasha varnishkes with brisket will be deeply missed.

Mom opted to forego a formal funeral service and instead chose to be interred in a mausoleum crypt at Myrtle Hill Memorial Park in Tampa, Florida.

In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made in Rochelle’s name to Tunnel to Towers Foundation (T2T.org) which has been helping America’s heroes by providing mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families and by building specially adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders since September 11, 2001.