Rosemary Schmutzer Reardon

Rosemary Schmutzer Reardon

B. Washington, DC 12.29.1923

D. Fairfax, VA 1.25.2016

Our mom was quite a woman. Her parents emigrated from Austria and England to Canada shortly after the end of WW 1, and then later ended up in DC, where her father Hans was the head maître d’ of the Crystal Room at the Willard Hotel. In the 1930s, he opened up the Old Heidelberg Restaurant on 11th Street, where his wife Jessie eventually joined him to run this favorite restaurant frequented by Washington Star reporters, FBI agents, and government bureaucrats looking for good food, a beer, and a joke from Hans. Our grandmother, Jessie, bore four children, including her last child, our mom, Rosemary, in 1923. They lived right next to Old Soldiers Home in Washington…mom always talked about the Civil War and Spanish Civil War veterans who rocked on the veranda as the kids played on the grounds, or being “rented out” during the annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House grounds, as only people with kids could gain access to the White House grounds for the occasion. Mom had to transfer to UMaryland during WWII to help the family, whose two sons and a son-in-law fought in the war, one of whom received the Congressional Medal for his heroic actions on Iwo Jima.

During wartime, Washington was a special place. Everyone pitched in to do their best for the war effort. After graduating from Strayer secretarial school, a family friend hired our mom to work for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA). After the war, she worked briefly as a secretary at TWA, and then joined the Foreign Service…and had an adventure of a lifetime. She first was posted to post-war Belgium, where she lived in the red light district with a landlady who sold the scarce coal provided by the embassy on the black market. Her French ability became important in her next posting at the small embassy in Dakar, Frenchwest Africa; her adventures included trips to the island of Gorée (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor%C3%A9e), where the slaves were sent shackled to board the ships bound for the new world. She found a local artist who painted the portrait attached above.

But of all of her postings, she most enjoyed her three amazing years in Rome during the mid-1950s. Living a true life version of “Three Coins in the Fountain”, she worked for Clare Booth Luce, sang songs with the Alpini, was led blindfolded to the Colosseum where friends gave her a surprise birthday party, encountered Orson Welles smoking cigars on the Via Veneto, and became very close with Bricktop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_%22Bricktop%22_Smith , whose protégés included Josephine Baker. Bricktop was the Miss Otis of Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets,” and after her conversion to Catholicism, would always preface any conversation about our mom by stating, “Rosemary is just a saint!”.

Having served in Europe and Africa, she was posted to the Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand shortly after the fall of Dienbienphu in 1954 as a personnel officer. One Sunday morning, she met our dad on the steps of the newly built Catholic Church (http://www.holyredeemerbangkok.net/ENG/?page_id=15). They were the first couple to be married in the church, and our dad had to promise to provide our mom 200 kilos of rice a year. Eventually they returned to DC, where she left the Foreign Service after Rosemary was born. Over the years we met many of her good friends, especially the other female foreign service officers, who pioneered the changes that are taken for granted today.

We eventually ended up in Macon Georgia during the decade of the 1960s, where we observed the slow process of integration. Picking up the Macon Telegraph (www.macon.com/news/), Mom initially thought it was quite a cosmopolitan paper, as there were all types of stories about Rome and Athens…but reality sunk in when she realized they were referring to the Georgian towns. Mom spent lots of time taking us to the pool, teaching us French, and trying to appreciate art, all of which was a bit absent in Macon in the 1960s. Mom really enjoyed working with the League of Women’s Voters. She helped organize discussions on the United Nations, and gave talks at schools about current events, including the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which is why her son Chris teaches Chinese politics at UNH today.

After we moved to Massachusetts in the 1970s, she commuted to Northeastern to finish her BA that had been interrupted by the war. She also started back to work at Hansom AF base, initially as a secretary but transferring to the personnel office when a vacancy arose. Besides raising us, our dad encouraged her to go back to earn her MA. She spent some scary nights on the snowy road commuting between our home in Chelmsford to Boston.

When our Dad was transferred to DC, our mom was happy as she was returning home after so many years. But Washington had changed drastically between 1948 and 1980. She had witnessed the sleeping Southern town with three story brick buildings of the 1880s taken over by rows of Quonset huts on the Mall to house WWII bureaucrats. However by 1980s, the Quonset huts and quaint brick homes had been replaced by canyons of concrete and glass towers. One thing that never changed was the Pentagon, where she worked in Air Force personnel handling all of the civilian teachers in the military schools worldwide. While she still took advantage of her shorthand skills of her secretarial days, she now mastered DOS and the Pentagon computer systems.

After our dad died in 1992, she retired, took several trips to Western and Eastern Europe, including a very memorable trip to East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria just five year after the fall of the wall, as well as visiting China In the US, she visited her son Chris every year in NH to see the colors all over New England, as well as a cruise to Alaska. And she kept the Reardon house going, managing both the finances and repairs. She took all types of classes at George Mason’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, managed the ushers for Catie Flye at Interact Theater Company, read the Washington Post assiduously every morning, watched all the news shows, and was a big devotee of TCM. She frequently went with two very close friends to the Shakespeare Theater, Folger, Signature, Arena and the Washington Opera. And every year she would celebrate the birthdays of several very close and dear friends, by going to the top restaurant in Washington, including her favorite, Chez Francois in Virginia.

She often spent time with her eldest daughter Rosemary, youngest son, Mark, and their spouses Don and Edie, exploring the Virginia wineries and celebrating the big events of family life, with the six grandchildren and later with six greatgrandchildren. And it was the incredible friends who lived in the neighborhood, former colleagues, and friends from Ollie, her French and Cinema groups, and her close friends at St. Mary’s Historic Church who enabled her to stay in her house, and continue living a full life…

And what a life…

She fought the good fight against aging. She fought to regain her mental health after a cardiac procedure for atrial fibrillation induced anxiety in November 2014. She fought to regain her mobility after a fall in September 2015. Her daughter Rosemary and son Mark visited her almost every day at the rehab centers and when she returned home in November. in December, we went to a show at the Shakespeare Theater. And on the day of our 30” snowstorm of January 2016, she was out were out in the car practicing driving to George Mason’s OLLI Center, and to the local Giant and CVS stores.

On her last night, Mom made a full dinner for her son Chris, and at five o’clock, they shared a Bellini cocktail…champagne was her favorite drink. They ate dinner, and watched two episodes of Downton Abby. She died in her sleep the following Monday. We thank God for allowing family to be with her, and for her to pass in her own bed surrounded by 92 years of memories.

The funeral will take place on 5 February at the Saint Mary of Sorrows Historic Church Directions: https://www.google.com/maps/dir//38.8040514,-77.3260924/@38.804055,-77.326076,14z?hl=en

History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Church_(Fairfax_Station,_Virginia)

From 11-1, there will be a viewing at the church, and the mass will be held at 1 pm, followed by a reception in the nearby parish hall. If there are any questions, please call the parish at 703-978-4141 or email.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions can be made in the name of Rosemary S. Reardon to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason University: http://olli.gmu.edu/ or Catholic Charities: https://support.catholiccharitiesusa.org/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=9113&iq_id=69647056-VQ6-81389143467-VQ16-c