Shirley Wood Kocher, age 93, of Fremont died May 19, 2025 at Dunklau Gardens in Fremont.
Shirley Wood Kocher was born on Sept. 28, 1931 at a mission hospital in Rentichintala, India and died on May 19, 2025 in Fremont. She graduated from high school at Kodaikanal School in southern India and attended Midland College in Fremont where she met her future husband, Robert. After graduating from Midland, she married Rev. Robert Kocher, and together they served as missionaries in Malaya (now Malaysia) over the span of 14 years. Shirley and Bob returned to the United States where Bob served as pastor in Bertrand and Emerson, Neb. They retired to a 6-acre plot of land in Nickerson.
As a daughter of Lutheran missionaries, Shirley was the product of a world that lived and breathed service to others. She began a lifelong career of teaching English to a group of rubber tappers in Malaya and continued in the United States, teaching a re-settled Hmong family, immigrants from Vietnam, Mexico, Guatemala, and other parts of the world. She found other ways to serve God by serving others: in college she worked for the Lutheran Service Corps, she sewed quilts for Lutheran World Relief, taught piano lessons at a UNICEF rehabilitation center in Malaysia, started meals-on-wheels in Bertrand, wrote thoughtful letters and later emails.
Shirley was preceded in death by her son, Ted; her sister, Betty Lou Nelson; and her brother-in-law, Rev. John Nelson. She is survived by her loving husband, Robert; her children Michael (Jodi), Eric (Vickie), Bruce (Suzy), Jeanne (Machel Perry), and Carrie Flynn (Scott). She is also survived by 11 grandchildren, 5 great grandchildren, her sister Patricia Remias (John), adopted sister Molly Lesnick (Alan), many nieces and nephews and many students.
The family of Shirley Kocher request that memorials be made to Lutheran World Relief give.lwr.org/page/123179/donate/1.
The celebration of Shirley’s life will be 11am, Monday, June 2, at Salem Lutheran Church in Fontanelle. Online guestbook at www.Ludvigsenmortuary.com.
