Friends, family mourn 'incredible' woman who died after crash at UNB
CBC
If you wanted to know who and what mattered to Erna Leger, you had only to peruse her Post-It notes.
The Lincoln, N.B., woman had oodles of them: notes to remind her to bring supper to a neighbour, to attend a co-worker's child's hockey game, to call a friend whose spirits needed a boost.
She very likely would have remembered all of those things anyway. But she didn't want to chance disappointing any of the many, many people she cared about.
Now, the people whose lives she touched are grieving the shocking loss of an "incredible" woman and the tragedy of a husband left without her.
Erna Leger, 77, died after a car crash at the University of New Brunswick's Fredericton campus on Oct. 19.
She and her husband, Bob, had just left a flu clinic at the campus bookstore Tuesday morning and were on their way home.
They were headed down the steep incline of Dineen Drive when the car swerved, rode up over the curb and struck the Lady Beaverbrook student residence.
Fredericton Police have said the cause of the accident is under investigation, but the family says they've been told the brakes failed and the airbags did not deploy.
It is believed Erna honked the horn to alert pedestrians and deliberately swerved to avoid injuring them, the family says.
Bob Leger remains in hospital, recovering from his injuries.
In an interview Tuesday, friend and former colleague Bob Fitzpatrick said it was hard to know where to start with the many fond memories he has, both of Erna herself and of the Legers as a couple.
"Except for work, you almost never saw them separately," he said. "You always knew when you saw the two of them that your spirits were going to be lifted. They're just such a beautiful couple."
Fitzpatrick worked with Erna at the New Brunswick Teachers Association for 15 of her 40 years with the association, when he was its executive director and Erna was his administrative assistant.
He said association members are stunned by the loss of a beloved colleague and "incredible friend."
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