Erica Diedre Sidorsky

Erica Diedre Sidorsky, of Baker, W.Va., was born October 20, 1956. She died September 30, 2020 in Moorefield, W.Va., with three friends and her beloved Australian Cattle Dog, Tully, at her side, after 22 months fighting breast cancer.

When she was two years old, she was adopted by the late Dr. Raymond C. Sidorsky, and M. Phyllis Gibbs Sidorsky, who survives in Alexandria, Va. Erica grew up traveling with her parents for conferences and speaking engagements. She graduated from high school in California and joined the U.S. Army. A Vietnam-era Veteran, Erica was a wheeled-vehicle mechanic in Germany. After the Army, Erica spent most of the next 30 years in Salt Lake City, Utah. She held myriad jobs, from running her own computer repair shop, to working in a warehouse, to being a bouncer at a lesbian bar.

The work that most defined and fulfilled her was animal rescue. Erica’s enormous heart would never let her pass a bag or box along the side of the road without checking for discarded animals. She kept a shovel and bags in her car to move dead animals and bury them, and she nursed the wounded ones.

Erica moved to Baker about 12 years ago and settled into her parents’ cabin. She kept to herself, preferring her chickens, cats and dogs to human company, but did enjoy the people at the Petersburg VA clinic, E.A. Hawse pharmacy, Capon Valley Bank, Dollar General, Tractor Supply, Shenandoah Oncology, the Moorefield Examiner, and her parents’ friends in Alexandria.

Erica had a mischievous, sarcastic sense of humor, and loved keeping others on their toes. She wore her black, silver-buckled motorcycle leathers to chemo and Walmart, loved knives and children’s books, insisted on early, in-person voting in the primary, and likely said something shocking when she realized she won’t vote in the general election.

Erica died as she lived: on her own terms, and in her own way. An online gamer, she thought vampires were ridiculous and identified as a werewolf and would’ve loved that she died in a full moon. She told people when she appreciated them or their efforts, not out of decency but because she thought people don’t hear it enough, and enormously appreciated the doctors, nurses, technicians and social workers who treated her.

She is reunited, now, with Callie, her heart dog, and Druid, a feral cat that allowed Erica to tame him.

There will be a celebration of Erica’s life: Details will follow. Instead of flowers, please give time or money in Erica’s name to an animal rescue, or adopt a cat or dog from a rescue.