Despite being diagnosed with the onset of dementia over eight years ago, Loretta (Laurie) Joy DeRochi continued to live a full life until the very end, dying peacefully with her family around her.

Born and raised in Princeton, she lived over eighty-seven years, and what an eighty-seven years they were. Laurie was no ordinary woman. She was the strongest-willed, adventurous woman you will ever meet. And up for anything her friends could conjure.

In her early twenties, because of her infectious laugh and boundless enthusiasm, she counted many Princeton graduate students as friends (and several as would-be suitors). They sang folk songs together in the basement of the Peacock Inn, skied together (she was a founding member of the Princeton Ski Club), and folk-danced together. Through this dancing, she met a group of Jewish students, who liked her and invited her to work on their farm commune on weekends. This led to an invitation to come to the Israeli Consulate in NYC, where they tried to recruit her to move to a kibbutz in Israel. She accepted their invitation to the kibbutz, but always her own person, she bought her own passage on a freighter to cross the Atlantic. And as always, she was the life of the party on the freighter (so smitten was the First Mate that he proposed marriage to her).

But she continued on to the kibbutz in Israel, where she fit in well. Being the social person she was, Laurie also used every opportunity to see the sights and meet new people. Once, on a lark, she rode a horse to the Jordanian border and exchanged pleasantries with a border guard. But that proved to be her undoing. Soon after that, she got a visit from the Israeli secret police, who had been keeping an eye on her. They expelled her from the kibbutz for her suspicious behavior. Apparently, in addition to her horseback riding, the nice Arab boy she was dating was the nephew of the only Arab member of the Israeli Knesset.

Undaunted, that set her off on a two-year hitch-hiking and working tour of Europe, and being Laurie, there were many other adventures. Always intrepid, one of the wildest was her run-in with the East German police, when, again on a lark, she poked her nose into East Berlin, just to see what was there. She had to pound her fist on some bureaucrat’s desk to get her passport back.

But finally, her funds exhausted, she returned home to Princeton, only to start saving money for her freighter passage back. Her plans changed however when she met Steve, another PU grad student (she accepted her first date with him for New Year’s Eve, on the condition that they went to her list of parties). Six months later, they were married, and Laurie lost her wanderlust and devoted herself to making their home.

She kept their three children on a very short leash, but she had their back at every turn. For instance, when her young son was being bullied by an older boy on his school bus, Laurie, true to form, did not complain to the school or call his parents. One day, she followed the bus to the bully’s stop and confronted him on the bus (she got a thumbs up from the driver as she left). Problem solved. You did not mess with Laurie’s kids.

Laurie was also a feminist before there were feminists, always sticking up for her female friends, not with placards, but in her daily life. Once, when an Air Force sergeant refused to let his immigrant wife drive his prized Pontiac GTO, Laurie taught her how to drive and helped her get a driver’s license. Another time, when an overbearing officer offered his wife a quarter to leave an Air Force outing, Laurie offered her a dollar to stay. And she told a bride-to-be in Switzerland that her intended was cheating on her, just days before the wedding.

And she didn’t suffer fools gladly, especially men. Once, on a guided tour of the Alabama governor’s mansion, Governor Wallace bragged that he himself fed the fish in a large aquarium. Laurie piped up, asking, “The black ones too? “

Ethnicity and racism were completely foreign concepts to Laurie. Instead, she had an open heart and a willingness to help anyone with a problem, as well as volunteering her time for many organizations over the years. She was valued for her excellent organizing skills, especially in raising tens of thousands of dollars for the Princeton Hospital. As a result of all this, as well as just being Laurie, her life was filled with many steadfast friends, friends who could count on her to help them any time.

But now, after her sixty years of marriage and that full eighty-seven years of life, her light is extinguished, leaving a void in our hearts that will never be filled.

Laurie was the daughter of Ernest and Josephine D’Andrea and had a brother, Ernest (Chubby) D’Andrea, all now deceased. She is survived by her husband, Steven; her three children, Andrea, Jonathan, and Elisa; and five grandchildren, Aidan, Lucia, and Dominica Moix, as well as Charles and Jack Welles.

There will be a graveside Commitment Service for her at St Paul Parish Cemetery, Princeton, at 11 a.m. on Monday, June 16. Family and friends are invited immediately afterward to join in a celebration of her life at her home.