Rochester, NY: Reiko Koide was born into the Koide family in Aomori, Japan in 1964. Since her first diagnosis in 2018, she courageously lived with stage III cancer, kept working until January 2020, and accepted death on August 31 at 11:45 AM.
After graduating from International Christian University in Tokyo in 1987, she worked for a newspaper company in Nagano Japan as a reporter for four years. She loved the occupation, but had to separate from it due to a work-related car accident in 1991. She decided to go back to school in 1992, and moved to Binghamton, NY to attend SUNY Binghamton and pursue a PhD in Sociology as a student of then International Sociological Association president Immanuel Wallerstein. She worked several jobs, raised a son, and eventually completed the degree in 2013.
In her last years she served the community as a Medicaid examiner at Monroe County’s Department of Human Services. She learned and mastered the job with an earnest desire to help those she could, shared her knowledge with other workers, paid close attention to her clients, and worked with other agencies to give back to the town that had in many ways become her second home.
She is survived by two brothers, Taro and Shiro, and her son Hugo Koide Keith.
A Memorial Service will be held at the Rochester Korean United Methodist Church in New York on Saturday, October 10 at 7PM Eastern Standard Time. In-person attendance of the memorial service will be limited to close family and friends due to COVID-19 precautions. If you would like to receive information regarding viewing the memorial service remotely via Zoom, please email Nobuko Wilson at nowilson@hotmail.com .