Sharon Anne Bestrom

Sharon Anne Bestrom, 84, passed away peacefully in her sleep at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park just after sunrise on Sunday, Oct. 6.

She is survived by her son, Eric Bestrom; daughter-in-law, Melanie Harrison; granddaughter, Anneli; brothers, George and Jack; and nieces and nephews, Lisa, Stacy, Zack, Jackie, and Jeremy, as well as many other cherished family members and friends.

Sherry was a passionate advocate for feminism, human rights, unions, the arts, and education. She worked as a nurse’s aide at Methodist Hospital in the early 1960s. From the 1960s to the 2000s, she served as a teacher and eventually became chair of the English department at Eden Prairie High School.

She kept boxes full of thank-you letters from grateful students. Sherry was a proud member of the Minnesota Federation of Teachers and, later, Education Minnesota. After earning a master’s degree and additional credits in English at the University of Minnesota, she nearly completed a second master’s degree in art history. This allowed her to bring added expertise as a docent at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where she often led museum tours for schoolchildren.

Sherry had a curious intellect and explored the world through reading, listening to NPR, watching TPT, and traveling. As a teenager, she traveled with her Girl Scout troop on an ocean liner to England, France, Switzerland, and Italy in the 1950s. Later, she supported herself as a dishwasher while living and touring in Norway, Denmark, and Italy again. In the 1960s, she worked in Alaska, taught cowboys in Prineville, Oregon, and taught in McHenry, Illinois. She also lived briefly on a filmmaking commune in Ohio. In the 1990s, she visited her son in Prague, toured Israel, Egypt, and Greece, and visited Istanbul.

The funeral will be held at Lakewood Cemetery Memorial Chapel in Minneapolis on Friday, Oct. 25. Doors open for visitation at 1 p.m., and the ceremony begins at 2 p.m. A short prayer will be conducted at the graveside in the Bestrom/Hill family plot in Section 17 following the ceremony.

The Washburn-McReavy Edina Chapel is handling arrangements.