Rachel Boersma knew how to land somewhere and stay. Born in New Orleans on August 23, 1965, she grew up on the West Bank. It was the kind of place that teaches you to be direct, to be loud, and to never confuse volume with unkindness. She was all three of those things and sometimes all in the same sentence.
Her childhood took a turn most people don’t. Her family moved to Dubai, where Rachel spent her formative years in the desert, a world away from the West Bank. She’d mention it later with the same casual delivery she brought to everything: “And when I was growing up in Dubai…” dropped into conversation like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. She had a pet camel but did not think this required further explanation. She came to Ruston, LA, for college and never left. She met David Boersma, and that was that. Ruston became home, not because she couldn’t go anywhere else, but because she’d found the people she wanted to be with.
She built a life there with David and raised two sons, Aaron and Wesley, with the same no-nonsense grace she brought to everything. Rachel spent her career at Crossmark Management Group in Ruston, working in accounting and finance — work that suited her practical mind and her instinct for keeping things in order. She was good at it the way she was good at most things: quietly, without fanfare.
But if you knew Rachel, you didn’t know her for her resume. You knew her for what she said when things got hard. “We got this.” Not a question, not a hope but a declaration. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she said it then too. “Build a bridge and get over it.” “It’s going to be okay.” She meant it every time. That wasn’t denial. That was faith. The deep-water kind, the kind that holds when the current picks up. Her favorite hymn was “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” and she didn’t just sing it. She lived inside of it.
Rachel Boersma died on March 1, 2026, in the same town where she’d planted her life decades earlier. She was 60 years old. She is survived by her husband, David Boersma; her sons, Aaron Boersma and his wife Jane, and Wesley Boersma; her three grandsons, Travis Dale Boersma, Charles Brooks Boersma, and John Arthur Boersma; her mother, Linda Stack; her sisters, Rebecca Lazenby and Roz Manfredi; and her brother, Roger D. Stack Jr. She was preceded in death by her father, Roger D. Stack Sr.
Visitation will be held Thursday, March 5, from 5:00 to 7:00 PM at Kilpatrick’s Funeral Home in Ruston, Louisiana. The funeral service will be held Friday, March 6, at 10:00 AM at Temple Baptist Chapel in Ruston, Louisiana. Rev. Len Woods will be officiate the service. Interment will follow in Kilpatrick’s Memorial Gardens under the direction of Kilpatrick Funeral Homes in Ruston, LA.
Pallbearers will be Jackie Rome, Chris Moran, Mark Boersma, Jackson Boersma, Jason Lazenby, George Haudel, Brent Ellender, and John Kyte.
In lieu of flowers, Memorials may be made to Trinity Church Club Nine 3, 1000 Woodward Avenue, Ruston, LA 71270 or visit trinityruston.org and select Give; a ministry for adults with special needs.
