Vickie Leach, beloved grandmother, mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, teacher, and school administrator passed away peacefully at home – surrounded by her loving family and friend Cencia – on October 27, at the age of 76, after living with grace through 20 years of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Vickie was born in a small Mississippi town on the Gulf of Mexico to Lawrence and Delta (Tottie) Lizana Jacobi who owned a mom-and-pop bakery. Lawrence baked the bread and doughnuts and cakes in the back of the house while Tottie sold them from the shop in front. Vickie and her sisters helped their mother as they grew up. Grandma Jacobi from Mexico also lived with them and Vickie wanted to speak Spanish and be bilingual like her. This desire led her to become the first in her family to venture out of Mississippi. She went to college at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico where all courses, even English, were taught in Spanish. Vickie graduated at the top of her class.
Vickie’s bilingual ambition proved prescient when the Social Security Administration recruited her as a claims representative in New York City’s Washington Heights. The first day she arrived in New York, Vickie met the love of her life, Michael Leach, at Your Father’s Mustache tavern in Greenwich Village. They married shortly thereafter. Four years later they moved from Greenwich Village to Old Greenwich, CT. When their two sons, Christopher and Jeffrey, started North Mianus School, Vickie volunteered in the learning disabilities classroom. A new desire was born: to be a teacher. She went to night school at Manhattanville College and earned the first of two advanced degrees in education. Her first teaching job was at Villa Maria School in Stamford.
In 1994 Vickie landed the job of her dreams: Assistant Principal at Stamford High School. Her bilingual ability and knowledge of special education made her a go-to asset not only at Stamford High but in schools throughout the district. Parents, teachers, and students looked to her for guidance and friendship. Vickie arrived at school an hour before anyone else and stayed until the last student who wanted to spend time with her left. She fostered co-partnerships with Xerox and other corporations to give students jobs and internships during the summer. Three years ago, Vickie and Michael moved from their Riverside home to a high rise building in Stamford that overlooks the school.
Vickie will be profoundly missed by Michael, her husband of 53 years, their sons Chris and Jeff, daughters-in-law Jessica and Jill, grandchildren Mae and Jackson, her sisters Mary Jo, Margo, and Delta, brother Larry – and by thousands of men and women whose lives she touched as a teacher.
The Leach family warmly invites you to a Memorial Mass in her honor to be celebrated on Saturday, November 5 at 11am at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, 1200 Shippan Avenue, Stamford, CT. Her burial will be private.
If you wish to make an online remembrance for the family online, you may sign the family guestbook at www.bosakfuneralhome.com or www.facebook.com/bosakfuneralhome.
