The Northwest D.C. corner of 13th and S streets was “Ms. Keesha’s corner” for years, and a school community is now mourning the loss of the beloved crossing guard.
Keesha Marshall died April 30, just weeks after she was diagnosed with colon cancer. She was 54.
Marshall was “larger than life,” Garrison Elementary School Principal Brigham Kiplinger said.
“To meet her was to remember her forever. You could hear her greeting, ‘Hey, baby,’ from all the way down the block, and by the time you reached her corner, she would have a dog treat for the dog or a sweet treat for the kids,” he said.
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Marshall didn’t have children but treated the school’s 320 students like her own, her cousin SaDetra Lassiter said.
“A person who was so lively and a person who was giving back to children who needed that is going to be missed,” she said.
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The corner is quiet without Marshall, the principal said. Now she’s its “guardian angel.”
