Shirley Kolkebeck, beloved Ridgewood elementary teacher, dies at 60
Friday, March 1, 2013 Last updated: Friday March 1, 2013, 9:56 AM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN AND DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITERS
The Record
Shirley Kolkebeck found her calling later in life than most teachers. But her knack for understanding children and their parents won her teacher of the year honors at the Ridgewood elementary school where she taught.
That community of teachers, parents and children was grief-stricken after learning that the 60-year-old Harrington Park woman had died Feb. 18 while vacationing with her husband in the Cayman Islands.
The couple had been scuba diving, Ken Kolkebeck said. She seemed fine afterward but awoke that night having difficulty breathing.
Shirley Kolkebeck, a native of Bridgeport, Conn., taught 22 1/2 years in Ridgewood. She had planned to retire next year, her husband said. The couple, who met when they were in college in Massachusetts, would have been married 40 years come June.
In the early years of their marriage, her husband’s job required them to move several times. They first came to New Jersey in 1976, then moved to Pittsburgh.
While there, Shirley Kolkebeck got involved through her church with a program called Mother’s Day Out that provided temporary child care. When the couple moved back to New Jersey, she and a friend replicated the program in 1981 at the Community Church of Harrington Park.
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