Leslie ’63 and Ed ’61 Derkum established a scholarship at Pomona College — ensuring her spirit of curiosity endures in students just beginning their journeys.
Travel was a family tradition — Derkum with her daughters, Patricia and Carol, aboard a European cruise.
Derkum, at her wedding, with Alice (Butler) Ronald '63 — her freshman roommate at Pomona and lifelong friend.
In her final days, Leslie Derkum ’63 sat on a train, winding through the Sierra Nevada near Alta, California, as the landscape scrolled past — a reflection of a life shaped by continuous curiosity and discovery.
In her lifetime, Leslie traveled to all seven continents, crossed Russia aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway, journeyed through the Northwest Passage and visited places as remote as Tristan da Cunha, an isolated archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean. Even on her last trip aboard the California Zephyr Train — where she passed away in 2025 at 84 years old — she was still doing what had shaped so much of her life.
Today, through a scholarship she and her husband, Edward “Ed” Derkum ’61 established at Pomona College, Leslie’s spirit of curiosity endures in the lives of Sagehens whose own journeys are just beginning.
“Leslie embodied the intellectual curiosity and spirit of exploration that define a Pomona education,” says Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr. “Through her and Ed’s generosity, that spirit will continue to shape generations of students as they pursue lives of meaning and impact.”
While Leslie had strong family ties to Pomona — her parents, George ’37 and Jean ’38 Freeman, along with her younger sister, Rebecca Ann Cummins ’65, are all alumni — she was determined to chart her own course at the College.
“Pomona had a kind of gravitational pull on her — it became part of who she was,” says Ed.
A botany major, Leslie filled her dorm room with leaves and plant clippings. Outside the classroom, she immersed herself in campus life, attending lectures, concerts, theater productions and events. Years later, her family would discover stacks of saved programs and playbills from her college days.
“She really embraced everything Pomona had to offer,” says their daughter Patricia Aguilar.
Ed and Leslie’s relationship at Pomona unfolded through the rhythms of campus life — shared meals, mutual friends and traditions of the era, including the fraternity pin Ed gave her while they were dating.
“When I was growing up, it sounded like they had the idyllic college experience,” Aguilar says. “They painted Pomona as the perfect place.”
After Leslie graduated from Pomona in 1963, she and Ed married that November in Berkeley. The couple eventually settled in Walnut Creek, California, where they raised their daughters, Patricia and Carol. Leslie volunteered in their schools and later volunteered at the Walnut Creek Library, eventually earning her public recognition from former President Barack Obama.
Over the decades, travel became another form of education for the Derkums. Together they explored the Galápagos Islands; met the Maharaja of Jaipur in India; and watched the official start of the Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska.
“My parents wanted to understand the history, the culture and the people wherever they went,” Aguilar says.
The friendships Ed and Leslie formed at Pomona also became a defining part of their lives. What began as college friendships became lifelong relationships woven into family life. Aguilar remembers weekend dinners with Pomona friends throughout her childhood, gatherings that continued year after year.
“The friendships were such a core part of their lives and one of the many lasting parts of their Pomona education,” Aguilar says.
Those friendships continue today. This summer, Ed plans to travel to Ashland, Ore. to meet with Pomona friends for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
These bonds transformed into a shared commitment to ensuring today’s students could experience the same meaningful connections at Pomona. Beginning in 1979, the Derkums made their first gift to the Annual Fund. Over the decades, they would endow a student scholarship and fund Pomona Plan charitable gift annuities, which provided the couple with secure income while supporting Pomona students.
True to their values, Ed and Leslie chose to give quietly, remaining anonymous.
“We always wanted the focus to stay on the students and their experience, not on us,” Ed says.
Today, Leslie’s legacy continues through the students whose lives are shaped by the opportunities she believed in so deeply. For Ed, his hope for those students remains simple.
“I hope they let Pomona do what it does best,” he says. “Opening their minds and sparking a lifelong curiosity about the world — just as Leslie would have wanted.”
To learn more about establishing a scholarship, contact Kyle Davis, senior director of development. To learn more about the Pomona Plan, contact Kerry McFadden, associate director of the Pomona Plan.