Courtesy of Laurie King.
Crestline Elementary’s beloved head custodian, Jerome Lewis, has died.
In a Facebook post, the Mountain Brook City Schools Foundation shared the news:
“We received word early this morning that Mr. Jerome passed away last night. He was such a bright, inspiring part of our Mountain Brook Schools community, and especially Crestline Elementary. Please keep him, his family and friends, in your thoughts and prayers. Rest peacefully, Mr. Jerome. You will be greatly missed.”
Lewis had been battling cancer for more than two years. Despite his thinning frame and the cancer treatments that took him away from his Crestline family and all the way to Houston for treatment, Lewis had always found his way back to the hallways of the school.
"His legacy will live on forever," said Crestline Elementary Principal Laurie King. "He was an exceptional individual. He led by example, with a work ethic like no one I have ever met. So many many people felt a personal connection to him because he somehow connected very intimately with them. Even though he had cancer, he never let it interfere with his mission to spread God’s word and encourage others. He stayed positive up to the very end. The last time I saw him, he told me not to worry. He was at peace and as he always said, 'He was blessed and very grateful.'"
Lewis' broad reach quickly became known outside the Crestline Elementary community when word began to spread that he had been selected as a finalist in the Cintas Corporation national Janitor of the Year contest. Almost immediately, the stories about how he had affected people’s lives poured in.
In an interview with Village Living earlier this year, Lynn Ortis said Lewis put his own cancer diagnosis aside when he learned her son and former Crestline student, Sid, was sick. One Thanksgiving, when Sid was sick in the hospital, Ortis said Lewis visited them along with his wife and son. Lewis said God had told him to visit the family in the hospital. Sid passed away in late 2015.
“We all held hands and prayed together,” Ortis said. “It was just … it was absolutely just a surreal moment. It was beautiful.”
Reflecting on that moment and everything else Lewis had done for the family by just being Jerome, Ortis said he is the “closest to Jesus on this Earth” that she’s ever seen.
King said that despite his own struggles, Lewis remembered and asked about the troubles of Crestline’s students and parents. Since 1984, when she first began working at Crestline, King said she had never seen quite the same level of love and support from students and parents that was given to Lewis.
“Even after they move onto the junior high school, students will still come back to visit Jerome — as will their parents,” she said in a previous interview. “There’s just no other Jerome.”
In May, the school gathered to celebrate the man they had all come to love.
Lewis, who worked at Crestline for nearly 10 years, was voted as the Cintas Corporation Nationwide Janitor of the Year. During a May 2 ceremony at the elementary school, Shawn King, marketing manager at Cintas, said Lewis raked in more than 25 percent of the half-million votes cast nationwide.
That same month, joy turned to sadness when King broke the news to her school that this time, Mr. Jerome would not be coming back.
“It is with deep sadness that we had to announce to the students that Jerome would not be returning to work due to his illness,” she said.
Through it all and to the end, Lewis said the Crestline community had always been right there with him.
“It’s like family,” he had said. “When one part hurts, all hurts; when one part rejoices, all rejoices.”
Speaking to Village Living earlier this year, Lewis said that as long as he was on this Earth, he would continue down the path chosen for him. No matter how this life may end, Lewis said, he had a simple vow.
“I’ll be finishing it with joy,” he said.
