Leslie Diane Rush

Rush—Leslie Diane Rush, 78, on August 30, 2025, in West Norriton, Pa. Leslie was born on May 9, 1947, to Mark and Nancy Fisher in Akron, Ohio. She was a graduate of Rosemont College in Pennsylvania. Leslie was the wife of Russell C. Rush.

Leslie’s interest in ancestry brought her to her Quaker roots and the Quaker faith. She attended Norristown (Pa.) Meeting and Plymouth Meeting in Plymouth Meeting, Pa. Leslie was a member of the Welcome Society of Pennsylvania, which is composed of descendants of the Quakers who traveled to America under the leadership of William Penn. This inspired her to write By the River, 1682, a work of historical fiction about a Quaker girl and a Native American boy during the days leading up to Penn’s Treaty of Amity and Friendship, signed around 1682 with the Lenape (Delaware) Indians at Shackamaxon (now Kensington, a neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pa).

After a career in retailing, Leslie walked a few blocks from her home to the Montgomery County-Norristown Public Library. She would become the library’s automation systems coordinator, a position she held for more than 20 years. Leslie was a central figure in the information technology boom at the library.

Leslie enjoyed volunteering at Jenkins Arboretum and attending productions at Norristown’s Theatre Horizon, and she was a patron of the German Society of Pennsylvania’s “Wister and More” chamber music series. She was an avid reader, gardener, cook and hostess, canner of foods, lover of dogs and cats, competitor in dog agility, feeder of birds, and a cataloger of materials related to those passions.

After a long and robust life, Leslie faced the challenges of several years of declining health with fortitude.

Leslie is survived by her husband, Russell C. Rush; two sisters, Alice Fisher Culman and Nancy Fisher Smith; her brother, Mark Fisher; and three half-brothers, Matthew D. Fisher, Anthony J. Fisher, and Charles C. Fisher.