Sharon Cohn

My beautiful wife, Sharon Cohn, was born in St. Louis, Missouri on June 11, 1954 and passed away in Tucson on April 1, 2026 almost 10 years after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She began her medical career in St. Louis as a delivery room nurse and later became a family nurse practitioner. While in St. Louis, she helped establish and run one of the first women’s health clinics in the VA system and later took her expertise to the VA in Tucson. Throughout her life, she saw every challenge as an opportunity and every stranger as a friend. She is survived by her husband of 31 years, Ken; her mother, Joy Lieberman; her brothers David, Mark and Daniel, and sister Denise; her 3 children to whom she always remained dedicated: Emily, Jake and Wendi; and her grandchildren: Jackson, Archer, Major, Brooks and Selah; She was preceded in death by her father, Lawrence Lieberman.

In March of 1994, Sharon and I became only the 2nd couple who would meet through the St. Louis Jewish Lite Newspaper’s “connection” section and later marry. Sharon was actually reading thru the personal ads looking for a connection for her brother who was soon to be divorced, when she came across my ad: there I described myself as an outdoor person, jogger, veterinarian and vegetarian; her family insisted she call me and 6 weeks later we were engaged while on a camping trip. (I surprised her with a wedding ring hidden in a piece of chocolate in a small box of candies.)

Sharon and I moved to Tucson, Arizona, in 2008 after we learned about cohousing at a community vegetarian potluck dinner in St. Louis. A local developer was trying to get a cohousing community started, but he never succeeded. When Sharon only had a few more years before retiring from the VA, where she was a family nurse practitioner, I sold my veterinary clinic (quicker than I had anticipated) and we moved here for her final 2 years at the VA, to be a part of a cohousing community and to enjoy the beautiful out of doors of the desert Southwest. I never thought she would agree to move here; she left the city she loved and had thrived in for the first 54 years of her life. In St. Louis she lived close to her parents and Emily, her 1st child – who has cerebral palsy and lived in a developmental community only 45 minutes away from us. Every week we would pick her up and she would spend the weekend with us.

Sharon always had a smile on her face; she loved people, animals and the out of doors. [If you knew Sharon, you know she loved people and the out of doors but let me illustrate her love of animals for you. Years ago, I had a client whose rescue dog developed bone cancer and they chose to euthanize it. I talked to Sharon about this and she agreed to help me in surgery (remember she was a nurse): we adopted him, amputated his leg, and gave him a pain free year of life. (I still remember that 9 days after the surgery, he was walking the 4 miles to work with me.) He even enjoyed canoe trips with us. Arnie is another story: after moving to Tucson, we hadn’t had a pet for a few years when Sharon said: “Ken, you need a dog.” And we adopted Arnie from the humane society.]

Sharon’s outdoor adventures began with her 3 kids, canoeing and camping in the streams of southern Missouri. Sharon’s disabled daughter, (now close to 50) and her 2 other kids, were with her on every trip. Before moving to Tucson, Sharon and I enjoyed frequent hiking, tandem biking and camping trips all over the Midwest.

Sharon 1st had to learn sign language for herself and then taught it to Emily. Later, she taught her daughter how to use a touch talker so they could talk over the phone, and Emily could communicate with people who didn’t know sign language. When her daughter turned 18, Sharon, (wanting her to have a very full and social life), found a wonderful facility where Emily has thrived and enjoyed the last 30 years of her life. As Sharon envisioned, every day her daughter is surrounded by friends and takes a bus to “work”. As Sharon’s Alzheimer’s progressed, her other 2 children took over the responsibility of overseeing Emily’s care. Emily always asked about her mother, but Sharon long ago lost all the memories of her 3 children.

In Tucson Sharon worked her final 2 years at the VA before retiring. Then we headed out on our first RV adventure: 1 ½ years through much of the continental US, then Alaska, across Canada into Nova Scotia and then Newfoundland. Over the years we enjoyed many shorter RV trips and at the very beginning of Covid began our last RV trip. I wanted it to last forever, but travel had become too difficult for Sharon, and after 6 months we returned to Tucson.

Sharon never said no to an adventure and over the years we shared amazing international travels. We enjoyed Belize, Peru and Machu Picchu; we trekked in Nepal and Vietnam. We traveled to Kenya and Rwanda where we saw the mountain gorillas and in the middle east, we toured Israel and Petra in Jordan. Shortly after her diagnosis we traveled to Equator and the Galapagos Islands.

In the Stone Curve cohousing community, Sharon remained very active until 2020. For many years she took responsibility for the community guest rooms and did an amazing job. It became more difficult for her as her disease progressed, and as usual there was no argument when I suggested she give the responsibility to someone else.

I will finish Sharon’s story with a description of her sent by a dear friend in the community: “Sharon was a shining light at Stone Curves. She taught baby massage to our young mothers, offered bread-making classes to the community, and connected with everyone she met in significant ways, like helping my daughter turn three big boxes of rescued celery into a whole lot of soup. Wherever you turned, there was Sharon, cleaning our guest rooms, encouraging and supporting others, and making the world a better place. Sharon was one of a kind, and her influence radiates into the world through all who knew her.”