Northwest High School teacher Jessica Kozlen will be remembered for her smile and kindness, said her family and colleagues.
She died Nov. 1 of stomach cancer at age 31.
Kozlen’s brother, Stephen Kozlen, 41, of Seattle, Wash., said his sister was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic jejunal adenocarcinoma in July 2021.
“She fought it as hard as she could until the very end, and throughout it, she was enormously positive and never seemed to blame her circumstance or anything,” he said. “Even when she was becoming clearly miserable, she always said she was ‘OK.’”
Northwest Principal Stella Viehland said Kozlen was a family and consumer science teacher who had taught fashion strategies, interior design and child development classes since August 2016.
“(Child development) was a favorite on campus,” Viehland said.
Stephen said Kozlen had been a teacher for about 10 years. She grew up in the St. Louis County portion of Fenton and graduated from Rockwood Summit High School. She later moved to House Springs, but then she and her fiance, Nick Martin, 33, moved to south St. Louis County when they purchased a home there over the summer.
Martin said he met Kozlen at a house party on New Year’s Eve in 2012 and the two were engaged on New Year’s Eve 2022. He said they were planning a wedding for March 2023.
“Her smile was contagious and her big blue eyes just had a calming effect,” he said.
A favorite teacher
Viehland said many students ate their lunches in Kozlen’s classroom rather than in the cafeteria.
“Jessica was so soft spoken and just so kind-hearted,” Viehland said. “She was very open and accepting of students.”
Stephen said Kozlen was passionate about her job.
“I remember as a very young child, she just loved cooking and I think that she liked working with kids in high school,” Stephen said.
Viehland said students have written letters to be given to Kozlen’s family, and students have talked about starting a scholarship in Kozlen’s name.
“She had already made such an impact in our building and it was just in such an individual and sincere way,” Viehland said. “She wasn’t necessarily flashy and out front, but it was a meaningful relationship she created with people one-on-one and through her classroom work that made her so special.”
Viehland said a long-term substitute teacher is filling Kozlen’s position until a new teacher is hired.
The diagnosis
Stephen said Kozlen had no serious symptoms before her diagnosis, just some stomach pain, which she saw a doctor about and was told to take iron pills.
“Nobody thinks to check a 29-year-old for stomach cancer,” her brother said.
On July 4, 2021, though, Kozlen called Stephen and asked what it felt like when he had appendicitis.
“She said, ‘I think I am experiencing that right now,’” he said.
After some convincing, Stephen told his sister to go to an emergency room.
“They ran a lot of tests and they ended up doing a CT scan and it revealed that she had late stage cancer that had spread to her colon and liver and it had already spread significantly,” he said.
Stephen said he was told Kozlen’s cancer basically has no symptoms until it is in an advanced stage.
“It’s a very rare form of cancer that is very hard to treat,” he said.
Stephen said Kozlen started chemotherapy right away and did have some success with different medicines.
“The second medicine actually had great effect and reduced a great many tumors over the course of a few months, but then it started to fail,” he said.
In August, Kozlen switched to immunotherapy, and it did not help, Stephen said.
He said her health began to decline, and she took full medical leave a month ago.
“In the beginning, (teaching) gave her a lot of purpose and strength and she loved showing up,” he said.
But, she couldn’t keep up the rigors of teaching and took the leave, and eventually her liver failed, causing her death, Stephen said.