Sharon Unternahrer
Resident of San Jose
Sharon Lee Rupprecht Unternahrer was born on October 2, 1945 to Leo Lutrelle Lee and Kathryn Elfreida Louise Rupprecht Lee. She passed away peacefully on December 16, 2019. Sharon was raised on a large farm in the small town of Marysville, Ohio. She preferred being on a tractor rather than in the kitchen. She graduated from Marysville High School and from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio where she received her bachelor’s degree in nursing. She settled in San Jose, California bringing with her the toughness that only a farm girl can know. She worked for Santa Clara County Public Health Service and became an expert on child development and assessing children for disabilities, most notably fetal alcohol syndrome. She was also an expert in prenatal and postnatal care and used this knowledge to teach childbirth classes and comfort new mothers. Later, one of her favorite places to teach was at the mid-grades where she focused on disability awareness to encourage students to respect and befriend their disabled classmates. After her retirement from public health, she worked as an advice nurse for Kaiser Permanente.
Sharon’s greatest passion was providing a loving stable home to more than 100 foster babies and children, most of whom were medically fragile or had other special needs. It was common to walk into her home finding her comforting a baby struggling with drug withdrawals or other health issues or handing you a baby to cuddle. She adopted two of them alone and then two more with her husband.
She also fervently supported numerous charitable organizations. Her favorite, however, was the Special Olympics. Placing her own special needs children on a variety of teams, she would sometimes take on coaching positions to further advance the program.
Sharon was an extremely compassionate woman. It was not uncommon to see her on a hot day running out to catch the refuse man with an ice cold bottle of water. The mail carriers weren’t left out either. She would place a chilled can of soda in the mailbox for their retrieval.
She is survived by husband Thomas Unternahrer, brother Gary Lee, children Dave (Beth) Rupprecht, Laurie (Tom) Heflin, Tim Rupprecht, Katie Rupprecht Strube, Joseph Rupprecht, Jody Waraich, Lovi Waraich, AJ Unternahrer, and Michael Unternahrer, 8 grandchildren and 2 greatgrandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents, her son Robert Lee Rupprecht and her grandson Nathan Strube.
In lieu of flowers, the family is asking for donations to be made to the Alzheimer’s Association at alz.org or to the Special Olympics at specialolympics.org.