Our mother, grandmother, cousin, niece, and aunt, Rosemary Frances (Shapiro) Petzold, passed away of natural causes on Sunday afternoon, 30 Dec 2018, in Waco, McLennan County, Texas, aged 77.
Public services will be held this coming Sunday, 6 Jan 2019, 2 PM at the First Baptist Church of Valley Mills, Texas. If you come, wear something purple. Interment will be at the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Abilene, Texas, on Monday under the direction of Foss Funeral Home and Cremation Center.
Rosie, as her family and closest friends would call her, was born 30 Aug 1941, Abilene, Taylor County, Texas, the eldest daughter of Jacob Joseph Shapiro and Mary Viola Sharp. She was named for her father's little sister Rose, who was named for her own grandmother whom she never met, as well as for both of her mother Viola's grandmothers, Mary Frances (Dodson) Sharp and Mary Frances (Chapman) Jackson.
Rosie was the apple of her family's eye. Very sweet-natured and sociable with reddish curls and a beautiful smile, she was everyone's favorite. Her family moved from Abilene to El Paso, El Paso County, Texas, when she was very young, and thence to the Panama Canal Zone due to her father's work as a radio operator with the Civil Aeronautics Administration. After several years there, the family moved back to El Paso.
Rosie was a diligent and accomplished student throughout her academic life. She graduated from Austin High School in El Paso in 1959, and went on to Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) where she would earn a B.A. in Elementary Education. Years later, she earned a M.A. with a specialization in Reading from Baylor University. Before that during the early part of 1960, Rosemary met a young Texas Highway Patrolman who had come up to the front desk of her dormitory lobby to pick up a date. Somehow, the date fell through, and she and the handsome stranger struck up a conversation that only ended 35 years later. The patrolman was our daddy, James Theodore Petzold of Valley Mills, Bosque County, Texas.
Momma and Daddy were married on St. Valentine's Day 1961, in Ford's Chapel of the First Baptist Church of El Paso. Momma's dearly beloved Aunt Velma, her mother's little sister had died that morning, so our parents' honeymoon was spent attending her funeral back in Abilene.
Life took Momma and Daddy from El Paso to Coleman, Coleman County, Texas, and back to El Paso before we moved to Valley Mills where Daddy was from. There, they restored the famous Bible House on Hwy 6, and gave us a precious and almost legendary home to grow up in. Valley Mills is also where our mother's career in education began to truly flower. After that, she taught at University High School in Waco; Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI; and Bowman Middle School in Plano. Momma also taught at Dobie and Paredes Middle Schools in Austin, Texas, West Ridge Middle School in Westlake, Texas, and the Principia Upper School in Baldwin, Missouri.
To our parents' union were born four sons: Timothy, James, Toby, and Jentry, all of whom survive her. Additionally, Rosemary is survived by Tim's wife Heike and Jentry's wife Kim Sue, along with Jentry's stepsons Sevin, Liam, and Brody, and the newest babies Seager Sharp Petzold and Lula Rose Petzold. Momma is survived also by her baby sister Lou Forbis and children Tammy, Gavin, and Garet, as well as Garet's wife Alexandra and children Jake and Sofia. Our paternal cousins, who were Rosie's beloved nieces Susan, Linda, Donna, and Blair, and her nephew Brent, survive her also.
***
There are many OTHER things you ought to know about our mother, including these: She was an excellent teacher and she taught for 39 years, from kindergarten to college, from public to private. Her first assignment was a little public school in Novice, Coleman County, Texas. True story. She was always rising to the top of her career ladder, receiving multiple awards and fellowships along the way. She was a drill team sponsor, a one-act play producer, and the go-to adult in probably thousands of young people's lives. She taught in an age when students were still free to drop by the house and spend time with her and her boys.
You should also know that Momma was a voracious reader with a burdensomely large library at times. She read authors, not just books. She had the most beautiful penmanship of any person we will ever know. Momma immersed herself in high culture and low. She had a People magazine kind of mind for the private lives of celebrities, but loved opera, ballet, and "the arts." Being an English teacher, she knew she had an obligation to teach literature with moral and intellectual value. She never shied away from that, even if it made some people uncomfortable.
Rosie loved her mother more than anyone on this Earth. It was a real reverence. And as our Grandmother was a devout Christian Scientist, so was Momma. Like her daddy, she was also a yellow dog Democrat. Her sons did not always embrace these affiliations, but they were absolutely part of her identity. Momma loved her Tex-Mex (especially Chuy's, where she probably put generations of young Austinities through college with her patronage). She loved making our favorite holiday snacks and dishes: Texas trash, fudge, sheet cake, and hot cocoa, among others. She was a generous woman who loved to buy things in fours because she had four boys. She was the queen of the Christmas newsletter and the holiday card.
Lastly, you should know how much Momma loved to travel. That was a passion she inherited from her immigrant father. And she certainly put it in our hearts, too. The trip our family made across the eastern United States in the Bicentennial Year was one of the most formative journeys of our lives. She took us to Europe, the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico, and all across the country. Weeks at a time. Lots of precious memories. (Several years ago, I shared with Momma the sad fact that two days before she was born, 28 Aug 1941, the entire Jewish population of the shtetl town of Keidan in Lithuania where her father had been born was murdered by the Nazis. It was her wish and mine that she could someday "return" there as a survivor and daughter of that beautiful old Jewish city, but we were never able to go. I regret that and I regret that we never visited Prague, another city she dreamed of.)
I know in the days and years to come, the memory of my mother will bring me to tears, but I will not wait to to be haunted by sorrow. Instead, I will do my best to persist with her generosity of spirit, her love of language and learning, and all the fun stuff we did together with her as my guide.
Toby
Public services will be held this coming Sunday, 6 Jan 2019, 2 PM at the First Baptist Church of Valley Mills, Texas. If you come, wear something purple. Interment will be at the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Abilene, Texas, on Monday under the direction of Foss Funeral Home and Cremation Center.
Rosie, as her family and closest friends would call her, was born 30 Aug 1941, Abilene, Taylor County, Texas, the eldest daughter of Jacob Joseph Shapiro and Mary Viola Sharp. She was named for her father's little sister Rose, who was named for her own grandmother whom she never met, as well as for both of her mother Viola's grandmothers, Mary Frances (Dodson) Sharp and Mary Frances (Chapman) Jackson.
Rosie was the apple of her family's eye. Very sweet-natured and sociable with reddish curls and a beautiful smile, she was everyone's favorite. Her family moved from Abilene to El Paso, El Paso County, Texas, when she was very young, and thence to the Panama Canal Zone due to her father's work as a radio operator with the Civil Aeronautics Administration. After several years there, the family moved back to El Paso.
Rosie was a diligent and accomplished student throughout her academic life. She graduated from Austin High School in El Paso in 1959, and went on to Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) where she would earn a B.A. in Elementary Education. Years later, she earned a M.A. with a specialization in Reading from Baylor University. Before that during the early part of 1960, Rosemary met a young Texas Highway Patrolman who had come up to the front desk of her dormitory lobby to pick up a date. Somehow, the date fell through, and she and the handsome stranger struck up a conversation that only ended 35 years later. The patrolman was our daddy, James Theodore Petzold of Valley Mills, Bosque County, Texas.
Momma and Daddy were married on St. Valentine's Day 1961, in Ford's Chapel of the First Baptist Church of El Paso. Momma's dearly beloved Aunt Velma, her mother's little sister had died that morning, so our parents' honeymoon was spent attending her funeral back in Abilene.
Life took Momma and Daddy from El Paso to Coleman, Coleman County, Texas, and back to El Paso before we moved to Valley Mills where Daddy was from. There, they restored the famous Bible House on Hwy 6, and gave us a precious and almost legendary home to grow up in. Valley Mills is also where our mother's career in education began to truly flower. After that, she taught at University High School in Waco; Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI; and Bowman Middle School in Plano. Momma also taught at Dobie and Paredes Middle Schools in Austin, Texas, West Ridge Middle School in Westlake, Texas, and the Principia Upper School in Baldwin, Missouri.
To our parents' union were born four sons: Timothy, James, Toby, and Jentry, all of whom survive her. Additionally, Rosemary is survived by Tim's wife Heike and Jentry's wife Kim Sue, along with Jentry's stepsons Sevin, Liam, and Brody, and the newest babies Seager Sharp Petzold and Lula Rose Petzold. Momma is survived also by her baby sister Lou Forbis and children Tammy, Gavin, and Garet, as well as Garet's wife Alexandra and children Jake and Sofia. Our paternal cousins, who were Rosie's beloved nieces Susan, Linda, Donna, and Blair, and her nephew Brent, survive her also.
***
There are many OTHER things you ought to know about our mother, including these: She was an excellent teacher and she taught for 39 years, from kindergarten to college, from public to private. Her first assignment was a little public school in Novice, Coleman County, Texas. True story. She was always rising to the top of her career ladder, receiving multiple awards and fellowships along the way. She was a drill team sponsor, a one-act play producer, and the go-to adult in probably thousands of young people's lives. She taught in an age when students were still free to drop by the house and spend time with her and her boys.
You should also know that Momma was a voracious reader with a burdensomely large library at times. She read authors, not just books. She had the most beautiful penmanship of any person we will ever know. Momma immersed herself in high culture and low. She had a People magazine kind of mind for the private lives of celebrities, but loved opera, ballet, and "the arts." Being an English teacher, she knew she had an obligation to teach literature with moral and intellectual value. She never shied away from that, even if it made some people uncomfortable.
Rosie loved her mother more than anyone on this Earth. It was a real reverence. And as our Grandmother was a devout Christian Scientist, so was Momma. Like her daddy, she was also a yellow dog Democrat. Her sons did not always embrace these affiliations, but they were absolutely part of her identity. Momma loved her Tex-Mex (especially Chuy's, where she probably put generations of young Austinities through college with her patronage). She loved making our favorite holiday snacks and dishes: Texas trash, fudge, sheet cake, and hot cocoa, among others. She was a generous woman who loved to buy things in fours because she had four boys. She was the queen of the Christmas newsletter and the holiday card.
Lastly, you should know how much Momma loved to travel. That was a passion she inherited from her immigrant father. And she certainly put it in our hearts, too. The trip our family made across the eastern United States in the Bicentennial Year was one of the most formative journeys of our lives. She took us to Europe, the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico, and all across the country. Weeks at a time. Lots of precious memories. (Several years ago, I shared with Momma the sad fact that two days before she was born, 28 Aug 1941, the entire Jewish population of the shtetl town of Keidan in Lithuania where her father had been born was murdered by the Nazis. It was her wish and mine that she could someday "return" there as a survivor and daughter of that beautiful old Jewish city, but we were never able to go. I regret that and I regret that we never visited Prague, another city she dreamed of.)
I know in the days and years to come, the memory of my mother will bring me to tears, but I will not wait to to be haunted by sorrow. Instead, I will do my best to persist with her generosity of spirit, her love of language and learning, and all the fun stuff we did together with her as my guide.
Toby
Our mother, grandmother, cousin, niece, and aunt, Rosemary Frances (Shapiro) Petzold, passed away of natural causes on Sunday afternoon, 30 Dec 2018, in Waco, McLennan County, Texas, aged 77.
Public services will be held this coming Sunday, 6 Jan 2019, 2 PM at the First Baptist Church of Valley Mills, Texas. If you come, wear something purple. Interment will be at the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Abilene, Texas, on Monday under the direction of Foss Funeral Home and Cremation Center.
Rosie, as her family and closest friends would call her, was born 30 Aug 1941, Abilene, Taylor County, Texas, the eldest daughter of Jacob Joseph Shapiro and Mary Viola Sharp. She was named for her father's little sister Rose, who was named for her own grandmother whom she never met, as well as for both of her mother Viola's grandmothers, Mary Frances (Dodson) Sharp and Mary Frances (Chapman) Jackson.
Rosie was the apple of her family's eye. Very sweet-natured and sociable with reddish curls and a beautiful smile, she was everyone's favorite. Her family moved from Abilene to El Paso, El Paso County, Texas, when she was very young, and thence to the Panama Canal Zone due to her father's work as a radio operator with the Civil Aeronautics Administration. After several years there, the family moved back to El Paso.
Rosie was a diligent and accomplished student throughout her academic life. She graduated from Austin High School in El Paso in 1959, and went on to Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) where she would earn a B.A. in Elementary Education. Years later, she earned a M.A. with a specialization in Reading from Baylor University. Before that during the early part of 1960, Rosemary met a young Texas Highway Patrolman who had come up to the front desk of her dormitory lobby to pick up a date. Somehow, the date fell through, and she and the handsome stranger struck up a conversation that only ended 35 years later. The patrolman was our daddy, James Theodore Petzold of Valley Mills, Bosque County, Texas.
Momma and Daddy were married on St. Valentine's Day 1961, in Ford's Chapel of the First Baptist Church of El Paso. Momma's dearly beloved Aunt Velma, her mother's little sister had died that morning, so our parents' honeymoon was spent attending her funeral back in Abilene.
Life took Momma and Daddy from El Paso to Coleman, Coleman County, Texas, and back to El Paso before we moved to Valley Mills where Daddy was from. There, they restored the famous Bible House on Hwy 6, and gave us a precious and almost legendary home to grow up in. Valley Mills is also where our mother's career in education began to truly flower. After that, she taught at University High School in Waco; Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI; and Bowman Middle School in Plano. Momma also taught at Dobie and Paredes Middle Schools in Austin, Texas, West Ridge Middle School in Westlake, Texas, and the Principia Upper School in Baldwin, Missouri.
To our parents' union were born four sons: Timothy, James, Toby, and Jentry, all of whom survive her. Additionally, Rosemary is survived by Tim's wife Heike and Jentry's wife Kim Sue, along with Jentry's stepsons Sevin, Liam, and Brody, and the newest babies Seager Sharp Petzold and Lula Rose Petzold. Momma is survived also by her baby sister Lou Forbis and children Tammy, Gavin, and Garet, as well as Garet's wife Alexandra and children Jake and Sofia. Our paternal cousins, who were Rosie's beloved nieces Susan, Linda, Donna, and Blair, and her nephew Brent, survive her also.
***
There are many OTHER things you ought to know about our mother, including these: She was an excellent teacher and she taught for 39 years, from kindergarten to college, from public to private. Her first assignment was a little public school in Novice, Coleman County, Texas. True story. She was always rising to the top of her career ladder, receiving multiple awards and fellowships along the way. She was a drill team sponsor, a one-act play producer, and the go-to adult in probably thousands of young people's lives. She taught in an age when students were still free to drop by the house and spend time with her and her boys.
You should also know that Momma was a voracious reader with a burdensomely large library at times. She read authors, not just books. She had the most beautiful penmanship of any person we will ever know. Momma immersed herself in high culture and low. She had a People magazine kind of mind for the private lives of celebrities, but loved opera, ballet, and "the arts." Being an English teacher, she knew she had an obligation to teach literature with moral and intellectual value. She never shied away from that, even if it made some people uncomfortable.
Rosie loved her mother more than anyone on this Earth. It was a real reverence. And as our Grandmother was a devout Christian Scientist, so was Momma. Like her daddy, she was also a yellow dog Democrat. Her sons did not always embrace these affiliations, but they were absolutely part of her identity. Momma loved her Tex-Mex (especially Chuy's, where she probably put generations of young Austinities through college with her patronage). She loved making our favorite holiday snacks and dishes: Texas trash, fudge, sheet cake, and hot cocoa, among others. She was a generous woman who loved to buy things in fours because she had four boys. She was the queen of the Christmas newsletter and the holiday card.
Lastly, you should know how much Momma loved to travel. That was a passion she inherited from her immigrant father. And she certainly put it in our hearts, too. The trip our family made across the eastern United States in the Bicentennial Year was one of the most formative journeys of our lives. She took us to Europe, the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico, and all across the country. Weeks at a time. Lots of precious memories. (Several years ago, I shared with Momma the sad fact that two days before she was born, 28 Aug 1941, the entire Jewish population of the shtetl town of Keidan in Lithuania where her father had been born was murdered by the Nazis. It was her wish and mine that she could someday "return" there as a survivor and daughter of that beautiful old Jewish city, but we were never able to go. I regret that and I regret that we never visited Prague, another city she dreamed of.)
I know in the days and years to come, the memory of my mother will bring me to tears, but I will not wait to to be haunted by sorrow. Instead, I will do my best to persist with her generosity of spirit, her love of language and learning, and all the fun stuff we did together with her as my guide.
Toby
Public services will be held this coming Sunday, 6 Jan 2019, 2 PM at the First Baptist Church of Valley Mills, Texas. If you come, wear something purple. Interment will be at the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Abilene, Texas, on Monday under the direction of Foss Funeral Home and Cremation Center.
Rosie, as her family and closest friends would call her, was born 30 Aug 1941, Abilene, Taylor County, Texas, the eldest daughter of Jacob Joseph Shapiro and Mary Viola Sharp. She was named for her father's little sister Rose, who was named for her own grandmother whom she never met, as well as for both of her mother Viola's grandmothers, Mary Frances (Dodson) Sharp and Mary Frances (Chapman) Jackson.
Rosie was the apple of her family's eye. Very sweet-natured and sociable with reddish curls and a beautiful smile, she was everyone's favorite. Her family moved from Abilene to El Paso, El Paso County, Texas, when she was very young, and thence to the Panama Canal Zone due to her father's work as a radio operator with the Civil Aeronautics Administration. After several years there, the family moved back to El Paso.
Rosie was a diligent and accomplished student throughout her academic life. She graduated from Austin High School in El Paso in 1959, and went on to Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) where she would earn a B.A. in Elementary Education. Years later, she earned a M.A. with a specialization in Reading from Baylor University. Before that during the early part of 1960, Rosemary met a young Texas Highway Patrolman who had come up to the front desk of her dormitory lobby to pick up a date. Somehow, the date fell through, and she and the handsome stranger struck up a conversation that only ended 35 years later. The patrolman was our daddy, James Theodore Petzold of Valley Mills, Bosque County, Texas.
Momma and Daddy were married on St. Valentine's Day 1961, in Ford's Chapel of the First Baptist Church of El Paso. Momma's dearly beloved Aunt Velma, her mother's little sister had died that morning, so our parents' honeymoon was spent attending her funeral back in Abilene.
Life took Momma and Daddy from El Paso to Coleman, Coleman County, Texas, and back to El Paso before we moved to Valley Mills where Daddy was from. There, they restored the famous Bible House on Hwy 6, and gave us a precious and almost legendary home to grow up in. Valley Mills is also where our mother's career in education began to truly flower. After that, she taught at University High School in Waco; Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI; and Bowman Middle School in Plano. Momma also taught at Dobie and Paredes Middle Schools in Austin, Texas, West Ridge Middle School in Westlake, Texas, and the Principia Upper School in Baldwin, Missouri.
To our parents' union were born four sons: Timothy, James, Toby, and Jentry, all of whom survive her. Additionally, Rosemary is survived by Tim's wife Heike and Jentry's wife Kim Sue, along with Jentry's stepsons Sevin, Liam, and Brody, and the newest babies Seager Sharp Petzold and Lula Rose Petzold. Momma is survived also by her baby sister Lou Forbis and children Tammy, Gavin, and Garet, as well as Garet's wife Alexandra and children Jake and Sofia. Our paternal cousins, who were Rosie's beloved nieces Susan, Linda, Donna, and Blair, and her nephew Brent, survive her also.
***
There are many OTHER things you ought to know about our mother, including these: She was an excellent teacher and she taught for 39 years, from kindergarten to college, from public to private. Her first assignment was a little public school in Novice, Coleman County, Texas. True story. She was always rising to the top of her career ladder, receiving multiple awards and fellowships along the way. She was a drill team sponsor, a one-act play producer, and the go-to adult in probably thousands of young people's lives. She taught in an age when students were still free to drop by the house and spend time with her and her boys.
You should also know that Momma was a voracious reader with a burdensomely large library at times. She read authors, not just books. She had the most beautiful penmanship of any person we will ever know. Momma immersed herself in high culture and low. She had a People magazine kind of mind for the private lives of celebrities, but loved opera, ballet, and "the arts." Being an English teacher, she knew she had an obligation to teach literature with moral and intellectual value. She never shied away from that, even if it made some people uncomfortable.
Rosie loved her mother more than anyone on this Earth. It was a real reverence. And as our Grandmother was a devout Christian Scientist, so was Momma. Like her daddy, she was also a yellow dog Democrat. Her sons did not always embrace these affiliations, but they were absolutely part of her identity. Momma loved her Tex-Mex (especially Chuy's, where she probably put generations of young Austinities through college with her patronage). She loved making our favorite holiday snacks and dishes: Texas trash, fudge, sheet cake, and hot cocoa, among others. She was a generous woman who loved to buy things in fours because she had four boys. She was the queen of the Christmas newsletter and the holiday card.
Lastly, you should know how much Momma loved to travel. That was a passion she inherited from her immigrant father. And she certainly put it in our hearts, too. The trip our family made across the eastern United States in the Bicentennial Year was one of the most formative journeys of our lives. She took us to Europe, the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico, and all across the country. Weeks at a time. Lots of precious memories. (Several years ago, I shared with Momma the sad fact that two days before she was born, 28 Aug 1941, the entire Jewish population of the shtetl town of Keidan in Lithuania where her father had been born was murdered by the Nazis. It was her wish and mine that she could someday "return" there as a survivor and daughter of that beautiful old Jewish city, but we were never able to go. I regret that and I regret that we never visited Prague, another city she dreamed of.)
I know in the days and years to come, the memory of my mother will bring me to tears, but I will not wait to to be haunted by sorrow. Instead, I will do my best to persist with her generosity of spirit, her love of language and learning, and all the fun stuff we did together with her as my guide.
Toby
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