Rose Norwood

Rose Helen Norwood, 90, of Cumberland died Wednesday, October 1, 2025 at Marshfield Medical Center - Rice Lake. She was born June 9, 1935 in Cumberland, WI to Marshall and Alice (Fox) Skinner. She graduated from Cumberland High School in 1953. She was married in Savage, MN on May 8, 1970 to Tom Norwood.
She is survived by children: Kevin (Jo) Cassiday-Maloney of Apple Valley, MN, Tom, (Janice) Norwood, Jr. of Chili, WI, Tina Norwood of Cumberland, Mark (Laura) Norwood of Homer Glen, IL, and Matt Norwood of IL; son-in-law Aaron Stolldorf of Woodstock, IL; 14 grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends. Rose was preceded in death by an infant son; daughter, Tracee Stolldorf, and grandson, Josh Stolldorf.
When Rose entered the world in 1935, things were far from easy, with challenges at home and in the larger world. By the time of her 10th birthday, she had lost a brother in World War II and had witnessed the challenges of mental illness, as her mother struggled mightily with depression. On top of all this, she was a heartbeat away from drowning at age 11, her feet barely touching the lake bottom as she was about to go down for the third (and final) time. This experience shaped the rest of her life, as she often told of the profound sense of peace she felt in what she was convinced were her last moments. Those of us gathered at her bedside when she died saw that same sense of peace as she approached the end of her remarkable life and the beginning of a new journey beyond our imagining or understanding.
Rose always made people laugh, and she had an uncanny ability to be a sounding board for countless people who would end up sharing significant parts of their life story with this trusted confidant. She lit up a room when she entered, and the hospital staff told us this was still the case even as there was so little left of the Rose people knew and loved.
Rose was quite smart and sometimes a smart aleck, too. She had a lifelong dream of doing standup comedy, an aspiration she fulfilled when she and her husband, Tom, organized a comedy troupe in the villa where they lived in Apache Junction AZ. She relished the times of her children bouncing puns off each other at family gatherings, and she loved to make plenty of her own sometimes bawdy puns and wisecracks. Humor and faith were her lodestones, and we who grieve her death will need lots of both as we move forward into the challenges of our lives and our world.
Look up the word resilience in the dictionary, and you'll find Rose's picture. She bounced back from countless challenges, the script of her life so often taking an unanticipated and unwanted direction. Barely having turned 30, Rose went through a painful divorce and became a single mom, having to experience the huge dislocation of moving from her life in Detroit back home to small town life in Cumberland, Wisconsin. Getting back on her feet in this new setting with her characteristic vim and vigor, she met the love of her life, Tom Norwood, with whom she sparked and sparred for 55 years, with Tom stepping up in a huge way in recent years to help care for her.
She helped so many people in her life as she poured herself into various church activities, as she had a ten year "ministry" of dealing blackjack and brightening people's lives, as she served as a hospice volunteer, and as she worked hard to bring laughter to many who had forgotten how to experience joy.
A Memorial service will be held at 11:00 AM on Friday, October 10 at Skinner Funeral Home, Cumberland with Pastors Kevin and Jo Cassiday-Maloney officiating. Burial will be in Lakeside Cemetery, Cumberland. Visitation will be 1 hour prior to the service.
Many, many thanks to the whole staff at Marshfield Medical Center - Rice Lake for their tender loving care far above and beyond what might be expected! They helped us all move through this time so much more gracefully than otherwise have been the case.
Skinner Funeral Home of Cumberland is serving the family.
Memorials to go to:
Desert Chapel UMC
462 N Palo Verde Dr
Apache Junction, AZ 85120