Rosemary C. West

Rosemary C. West

Rosemary C. West, 90, of Austin, Texas, passed away on July 30, 2014.

She was born in 1924 to Wesley Downing and Christine (Scalise) Smith in Akron, Ohio. Rosemary graduated from Garfield High School in 1942, a few months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Like most people at that time, Rosemary wanted to "do her part for the war effort." She went to work at Goodyear Aircraft in Akron, building and inspecting Corsair fighter planes. On her 20th birthday, Rosemary enlisted in the WAC's (Women's Air Corps) and she was stationed in Long Beach, Calif. During World War II Rosemary was a Link Trainer Instructor and she taught pilots how to fly by instruments when they couldn't see the ground (using flight simulators). After the war Rosemary attended Kent State Univ. for a year and she went to work as a flight attendant for TWA and United Airlines. Rosemary was always teased that she could fly a plane at 20, but she didn't learn to drive a car until she was 45 years old!

Rosemary married her high school sweetheart, Gaylord West. Rosemary and Gay pooled their GI loans to purchase, what later became, WEST'S CARDINAL MARKET in Wadsworth, Ohio. It wasn't long before Gaylord was running three mom & pop grocery stores in and around Akron. They owned their Wadsworth grocery store for over 60 years, long after gigantic supermarkets had run most independent local grocers out of business. Rosemary handwrote the signs for all the sale items by hand every week for decades and later in life she would help Gay make his orders twice a week.

In Rosemary's free time, she coordinated the volunteers for the local American Red Cross Blood Bank for over 50 years. She also volunteered as a "grey lady" at the Wadsworth-Rittman Hospital for over 50 years, usually with her dear friend Peggy Bates. Come rain or snow, they would welcome hospital visitors and deliver flowers and cards to the sick patients. Growing up in a large family, Rosemary loved to be "one of the gang." Rosemary loved to laugh, but she also loved: playing bridge with her girlfriends, watching movies with happy endings, holding babies and dogs and listening to beautiful music.

Rosemary and Gay had four children: Max West (deceased), Lyn (West) Strand (deceased), Larry West (Cerritos, Calif.), and Kathi West (Austin, Texas). They had two grandchildren, by Lyn and Tom Strand: Meghan (Strand) Roussel (Austin, Texas) and Micah Strand (Westminster, Colo).

After her loving husband Gaylord, passed away in 2003, Rosemary kept her beloved home in Wadsworth, but she rotated her time between her three kids in Texas, Colorado and California. For seven years Rosemary got back to Ohio every summer to visit friends and relatives and to check on her house. Eventually, Austin became Rosemary's home and even when Rosemary started showing signs of vascular dementia she stayed surprisingly cheerful and sweet.

Rosemary's siblings all preceded her, including her sisters: Kathy (Smith) Martin (Stow), Lillian (Smith) Wagoner (Florida), Alice (Smith) Woodson (California); and brothers: Albert Smith (Akron), Wesley Smith (Akron), Jackie Smith (Akron).

There will be a private family graveside service for Rosemary at Hillcrest Memorial Gardens, 9560 Acme Road, Seville, OH 44273 on Saturday, September 20, 2014. There will be a public casual reception to celebrate Rosemary's life, Saturday, September 20th, at the Galaxy Restaurant, (Moon Glow room), 201 Park Center Dr., Wadsworth, OH 44281, from 2 to 4 p.m.