Roseanna Crowe

Roseanna Crowe (Rosie) passed away on December 24, 2020 at the age of 80.  Rosie is predeceased by her husband William E. Crowe.  She also leaves behind her daughters Sandy Ratke and her late husband John; Mary Robey and husband Bill; Janet Alessandrini and husband David.  There are also 8 grandchildren (three of them married) and 5 great grandchildren.  She also leaves behind her brother Nicholas Eckhardt and wife Cindy, 4 nieces and nephews, and many great-nieces and nephews.

Rosie was born September 24, 1940 in Washington, DC to the late Charles Nicholas Eckhardt and Georgia Mildred Eckhardt (nee McConnell).  She grew up in Silver Spring and graduated from Montgomery Blair High School.  While there Rosie very much enjoyed singing with the choir and made All State for Maryland.  During the year she turned twelve, she met and started dating the boy who would become her husband – William (Bill) Crowe.  The teenage sweethearts married on Bill’s 18^th birthday and she passed on what would have been his 80^th birthday and their 62^nd wedding anniversary.

When the girls were young, Rosie was a stay at home mom.  In those early years after the girls started school, she bowled as a substitute on various 10 pin bowling leagues in the area.  She was so active that one time she showed up to sub and found out it was a duck pin league.  Needless to say, she wasn’t asked back to that league!  She was a youth bowling coach for a few years and coached both Sandy and Mary and a number of children from the neighborhood.  Unfortunately, Janet was too young to be on the league (which she laments to this day!).  Later Rosie and Bill bowled on the Faculty Staff League at the University of Maryland, and for a couple of years the whole family also joined them on the league.  A great time was had by all!

She was also very active with the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital as her daughters became active with Scouts.  She served as a Junior Troop Leader for many years, and even did a stint as the Association Cookie Chairperson.  It certainly was a shock to both Rosie and Bill when their entire rec room was filled floor to ceiling with hundreds of cases of Girl Scout Cookies!!  When it came time to take her troop camping, she found herself without a First Aider.  Bill stepped into the role by taking the required first aid course, and thus began their involvement with the American Red Cross for both, and additional roles for Bill throughout the ensuing years.  She was also in charge of Camp Craft at Conestoga Day Camp held in Greenbelt Park for many years.  This is where she got her camp name of “Smokey” which she loved!

Rosie and Bill also had many years of enjoyment sailing their 27-foot sailboat in and around the South River, out of Edgewater MD and they were active with the Coast Guard Auxiliary for a few years  They absolutely loved taking family and friends out for a day on the river or Chesapeake Bay!

Rosie went back to work when their daughters were older, looking for and getting a job at the University of Maryland.  She specifically looked there so that she and Bill only had to have one car on the road.  They rode to and from campus together and had lunch together every day until Bill’s retirement in 1987.  Rosie began as a Secretary in the Space Sciences department and completed her time as a Program Management Specialist for the ENES 100 program under the College of Engineering when she retired after 25 years in 2000.

After her retirement, Rosie and Bill took a month-long trip around the county.  They started their travels after 9/11 and still vividly remembered seeing the smoke rising from the remains of the twin towers (which they could see in the distance).  They continued their trip up into Canada, and upon their return to the states turned on the news to reports of a tornado that struck College Park, and the University of Maryland where all three of their daughters worked.  After making sure they were all okay, they continued their trip seeing much of the country and visiting numerous family and friends they had met throughout their lives.

After Bill’s death in 2014, she took her first cruise with her youngest daughter’s family and from then on, she was hooked!  Rosie began cruising yearly to multiple destinations including Aruba, Bahamas, Bermuda, Bon Air, Curacao, Grand Turk, New England, Jamaica, Martinique, Bermuda, Nova Scotia, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico.  She was very much looking forward to her next cruise which would have taken her around the western Caribbean with a stop at the Panama Canal, which was a lifelong dream of hers to see.

Rosie will be greatly missed by everyone who knew and loved her, but she left us this poem to make our grieving a bit easier.

An Irish Poem

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there…I do not sleep.

I am the thousand winds that blow…

I am the diamond glints on snow…

I am the sunlight on ripened fain…

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you waken in the morning’s hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of gentle birds in flight…

I am the soft star that shines at night.

A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, March 13, 2021 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm at the Knights of Columbus at 9450 Cherry Hill Road, College Park, MD 20740.