Lisa Jean (Hoshaw) Harvey Russell

Lisa Jean (Hoshaw) Harvey Russell, 73, of Esmont, died on Saturday, December 6, 2025 at her home.

She was born on July 13, 1952 in Illinois, a daughter of the late Charles Richard and Elizabeth Jean (Fletcher) Hoshaw.

Lisa spent her life raising two boys and teaching French, English, and English as a Second Language to thousands of middle, high school, adult, and international students and prospective teachers. She loved teaching Advanced Placement French and was selected to teach at the Virginia Governor’s Foreign Language Academy for French three times. Her teaching career spanned four decades and took her from Illinois to Virginia to France, Senegal, The Gambia, Morocco, and Canada.

She was selected to represent the United States as a Fulbright Exchange Teacher to Senegal, West Africa and later as a Fulbright Alumni Association grantee in Morocco where she taught English and introduced hundreds to American culture and customs such as Thanksgiving dinner. Lisa was selected by the President of The Gambia, West Africa, to share her teaching techniques with a group of new teachers there.

Upon retirement in 1999, Lisa never abandoned her travel bug and she eagerly visited the Grand Canyon, France, and Canada multiple times, as well as made routine visits to beloved Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina beaches. Always a teacher at heart, Lisa continued to scan job openings and volunteer opportunities to teach up until her last month on earth.

Lisa was an aspiring violinist, dancer, and actress, and performed the lead in several high school musicals. She loved a bit of excitement now and again, and spoke longingly of time she spent water skiing the gator- and stump-filled bayous around Baton Rouge, where as an undergraduate she attended LSU, and had wonderful times hang gliding, parasailing, snow skiing and, camel, horse, mule, and dolphin riding. She loved animals and plants, especially butterflies, hummingbirds, and flowering trees, and was pet Mom to many special bunnies, cats, dogs, and birds.

Lisa rarely met a person that didn’t like her at first sight or word and for whom she would not have given her last morsel of food or penny from her purse.

Survivors include her husband, Glen Ryan Russell of Esmont; biological sons Thomas Harvey of Pennsylvania and Anthony Harvey, currently living in Canada; stepson Caleb Russell of Colorado; her beloved sister Christa Mikel of South Carolina, and dear brother Joel from Pennsylvania.  

A graveside service will be conducted at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 in the Cool Spring Natural Cemetery in Berryville, VA, by Father Paul M. Grankauskas. 

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent in Lisa’s name to a charity she had hoped to work with, Mercy Ships at donate.mercyships.org.

Thacker Brothers Scottsville Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.

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