FARGO — Her first childhood nickname was a common one: “Peanut.”
But it wasn’t quite the right fit for tiny Miss Kelsie Maureen LeClerc.
But that would change.
When she was 18 months old, fighting through her first heart surgery and a follow-up infection that nearly killed her, she inspired another more appropriate nickname: “Cashew.”
After all, said her dear Aunt Rosalie, “she’s no ordinary nut.”
The nickname stuck for life. It proved prophetic. For all of her 39 years, Kelsie remained small in stature but mighty in spirit — quirky, resilient and determined to make her short life count.
“I don’t think she was 5 feet tall, but she had a will of steel,” said Angela Smith, associate professor of history at North Dakota State University. “She had gone through so much in her life, and yet she figured things out, she worked harder than anyone and she inspired everybody around her.”
Kelsie died July 31 after a nine-month battle with lung cancer. Her family and friends will remember her in a place she loved — the Fargo Air Museum — where the stories she once preserved for veterans will now frame her own.
Kelsie was born with a congenital heart defect on Jan. 20, 1986, to Warren and Colette LeClerc of Grand Forks.
According to her obituary, “back then, nobody could predict the physical and emotional challenges that would befall Kelsie throughout her life. Challenges beyond what many could bear. In hindsight, the Lord clearly designed her with an extra dose of grit and tremendous capacity for love and compassion toward all living things.”
After graduating from Red River High School in 2004, she didn’t see herself as “college material.” So she worked odd jobs, eventually becoming a massage therapist before health challenges forced her to give it up.
The death of her father, a Vietnam veteran, in 2018 set her on a new course. She wanted to tell the stories of veterans like her dad — men and women who had sacrificed so much and didn’t always speak about it.
Going to college was way to make that happen. At age 36, Kelsie went back to school. She earned an associate’s degree in 2021, transferred to NDSU and graduated summa cum laude in 2024 with a degree in public history.
Obviously, she was college material.
She moved straight into the master’s program, where Smith was her adviser.
Smith remembers her first encounter with Kelsie in fall 2022 who was dressed in jean shorts and flip-flops.
“I didn’t know what to make of her at first,” Smith said, laughing. “But by the end of the semester, I adored her. She was quirky, funny and incredibly generous. She was the kind of student who would show up in your office, ask the tough questions and come back until she got it right.”
Public history majors at NDSU must complete more than 400 hours of internship work. Kelsie spent hers at the Fargo Air Museum, recording oral histories with military veterans.
“She did these amazing interviews with veterans, Smith said. “Those men would sit and talk to her for hours. She knew how to relate to them, but she also knew when to pull back and just let people tell their stories.”
Then, according to Smith, she created “a moving podcast that wove together three veterans’ oral histories with empathy and insight.”
It’s fitting that her funeral will be held at the Fargo Air Museum, a place where she helped veterans’ stories come to life and where some of those veterans will now say goodbye.
“She did it all at the Air Museum. She loved it. She loved it there,” Smith said.
Emily Kulzer, the director of museum operations for the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, was Kelsie’s supervisor while Kelsie worked as a tour guide at Moorhead’s Comstock House. She said Kelsie specifically requested her funeral be held at the Air Museum, where all of her “families” from work, school and home could meet each other.
“She actually wrote in her notebook that we needed to ask for the employee discount — in big capital letters. Even as she was planning her funeral, she made us laugh. That was just Kelsie,” Kulzer said.
Kulzer said in her last few months, Kelsie wanted to stay busy, helping where she could, even attending Comstock’s Titanic dinner in March, helping polish silverware and glassware, even when she wasn’t feeling well.
“She didn’t want to just sit at home and wait to die,” Kulzer said. “She wanted to keep feeling like she had some purpose, that she could help people, no matter what.”
Smith said current students could learn a lot from Kelsie.
“Life is sometimes hard in ways you can’t control. But you don’t give up. You figure out what fits you — not what someone else wants for you — and you work steadily toward it. That’s how you move through,” she said.
Smith and fellow NDSU historian Dr. Tom Isern are now working to establish a scholarship in Kelsie’s name to honor the way she lived her life and the energy she put into her education.
Smith said it’s for students just like Kelsie.
“They won’t have to have a 4.0 for the scholarship. They might be a non-traditional student who knows what they want to do, but they need some help to get there,” she said. “It will give somebody else the boost they need.”
Smith said anyone interested in donating to the scholarship should email her at [email protected].
Kelsie’s family said donations can also be given to Journey Home Animal Rescue. Her beloved dog Buster was a rescue as well as her Cooper, whom she had recently adopted.
Kulzer remembers Kelsie talking about why she wanted another animal.
“She just told me through tears, ‘I just have so much love to give, and I feel like I’m not able to give my love to anything just sitting here in my apartment,'” Kulzer said. “That was who she was — she had a huge heart and loved animals and people so much. She wanted to help however she could.”
