All that Patti Gelb was is wrapped up in five simple words: Patti Gelb was a teacher. For several decades, she taught the lower grades in schools in West New York and Weehawken.

And she was a hard-working one, at that.

Patti Gelb was not just a teacher; she was a teacher of young children. She got them in the lower grades, when they were still basically empty vessels, still capable of being filled, when they were being taught the tools they would need to continue learning to create a better life for themselves and for the world around them.

She and her husband Irving Gelb met around 1980, at a singles event in New York City. They liked each other a great deal. First as friends, then after six years, as husband and wife. Marriage didn’t kill the friendship; it only grew stronger. They grew stronger together.

She is sorely missed.