A lovely laugh, a quirky personality and a fiercely independent soul is now silenced.
Rosemarie Regina Malloy, 95, came to life July 30, 1930, in Pittsburgh PA, the first of three. She graduated Mt. Mercy College then enlisted in the Navy, serving in a women’s code-breaking team during the Korean War. Post-war she earned a Masters in Letters from the University of Pittsburgh and then joined her family who had moved to St. Petersburg. She started married life in Pinellas Park in 1959 and lived in her much-loved house until her death.
She was a teen counselor and education director for the YWCA until she took her Spanish skills into tourism, working with several agencies to develop and promote tour itineraries in the Caribbean and Mexico. Throughout she was active in the community writing and performing in dramas with the Woman’s Service League, writing and publishing poetry, rescuing strays and allowing her cherished camphor tree to be colonized by numerous neighborhood children.
Temporarily slowed by a terrible car accident in 1981, she recovered to re-begin work as a digital editor at a commercial publishing house and devoted even more time to personal writing and research into varied topics (the Civil War, WWI aviation, dinosaurs, etc.) and volunteering for the Pinellas Park library.
She is pre-deceased by her parents Bernard and Alice, brother Bernard C. Malloy and sister Eileen Malloy Howard.
Rosemarie is survived by her nephews Charles Malloy (Jody) and Scott Luebbert and her nieces Deborah Mentler and Lisa Sheldon and 7 grandnieces. She always maintained a voluminous correspondence with innumerable friends, colleagues and acquaintances of which two life-long friends survive – Mary Guptil and Joann Creager.
A Celebration of Life will be held at Taylor Funeral Home, 5300 Park Blvd., Pinellas Park 33781 at 2 p.m. Saturday, November 22nd.
In lieu of flowers, donations in her name to animal support groups (Friends of Strays (813)522-6566) or a veteran support group (Disabled American Veterans 1-855-619-4376) would be appreciated.
Taylor Funeral Home
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