Rochelle Perrine

In Loving Memory

Rochelle Perrine – beloved mother, sister, and librarian – passed away in Auburn, California, on April 25, 2026, with her cat, Free, steadfastly by her side. She called Rose Street in Berkeley her home for 60 years, and after moving West, she never again endured a Syracuse winter.

Rochelle was born and raised in the Westvale neighborhood of Syracuse, New York. She cherished her lifelong friendships and her close-knit Syracuse roots, but a new life in California presented an opportunity she couldn’t resist. She arrived with her young family during the Summer of Love, eventually making the San Francisco Bay Area her lifelong home and community. Rochelle graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley, earning her Master of Library Science (MLS).

Rochelle built a career defined by innovation and impact in the field of health information and patient education. Beginning at Kaiser Foundation Hospital, she went on to serve as the Founding Director of the Planetree Health Resource Center in San Francisco – and helped to pioneer the expansion of patient education and the right to greater access to health information. She later brought her expertise to HealthCentral.com, working with Dr. Dean Edell as an online librarian, where she provided guidance on locating and using health resources. She continued her work at St. Mary’s Medical Center, then at Touro University, achieving the distinction of Professor Emeritus. Her contributions to patient education earned her distinguished recognition from the Medical Library Association – an honor she considered her most meaningful professional achievement.

She was a proud member of Daughters of the American Revolution, and she was a world traveler who visited 69 countries (and counting…). She loved theater, ballet, and musicals, both in the Bay Area and on her travels around the world. She could be very firm in her preferences, finding it distasteful to wear pants or drink anything but Peet’s coffee (she took hers black).
Rochelle shared a deep and intuitive bond with her beloved cat, Free – a connection that was apparent to all who knew her and her devoted feline. She was a patient and steady presence in her children’s lives. While their relationships had their complexities, she accepted them as they were, and over time those bonds softened into companionship.

Despite having an encyclopedic mind, her personal file cabinets seemed to defy all known principles of library science – stacks of papers that resisted categorization. But her memory was another matter entirely. Ask her about a conversation from 1982 or an obscure fact from decades past, and she could recall it instantly. She always said she knew where everything was, and she was right. In her mind, everything had its place.

That same spirit made her a formidable Trivia opponent – so much so that she eventually began holding back answers at her senior community’s Trivia Nights, having realized she wasn’t making any friends that way.

Rochelle is survived by her son, Gregory Schmalz of Berkeley, CA; her daughter, Kirsten Leitner, and son-in-law, Paul Loomis, of Nevada City, CA; her sister, Wendy Osborne, and brother-in-law, Mark Osborne, of Jamesville, NY; her brother-in-law, Dr. Mark Publicker, of Brooklyn, NY, many nieces, nephews, and beloved cousins across the country; and her former husband, Warner Schmalz.

She was preceded in death by her beloved sister, Stephanie Publicker.

Rochelle is remembered for her work as a medical librarian, serving healthcare professionals and lay people during the transition to computerized information systems, and helping both gain ready access to accurate, accessible medical research.

She shared what she knew generously, with a dry, unintentional, and often pithy humor that caught you off guard and made you laugh – a humor that grew lighter and more frequent in her later years.

Rochelle is remembered as she was in life – upright and exacting, but unfettered, with the wind in her hair.

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