Rose M. Stevens

Rose M. (Klein) Stevens, 89, died Sunday Feb. 22 in New Albany. She was well-known for her teaching career in Floyd County Schools: Fairmont Elementary and Lafayette (Floyds Knobs) Elementary.

Rose was born in 1937 the middle child among six siblings in Iowa City, Iowa. Her parents Louis and Marion Klein farmed in the nearby Tiffin, Iowa area. She graduated as valedictorian from St. Mary's High School in Iowa City, played the organ at church, and attended secretarial school. She then worked at the Veterans Hospital.

Marriage took her to Dubuque, Iowa for nine years and then to Henderson, Kentucky for two years. She then moved to New Albany for ten years. At age 35 she started her collegiate career at Indiana Southeast University, where she eventually earned her master's degree in education. Her great love was working with kindergartners and second graders.

Her final 47 years were spent in their homespun house in the hills of Starlight near Borden. She loved seeing the deer and squirrels and not so much the raccoons who dug up her flower beds.

Her wide interest in civic affairs resulted in helping to organize protests against the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant construction near Madison, Indiana. Rose also marched against the use of US military in the Iraq War and for single payer healthcare. She was not militant, but she always was true to her heightened sense of environmental and social justice.

She also was involved intimately with the First Unitarian Church in Louisville, where she taught Sunday School and served on the Board of Trustees.

For 44 years she danced with the Louisville Ethnic Dancers. The group held weekly social dancing and instruction sessions and provided a performing dance troupe for folk music festivals in a 7-county area. She and her husband appeared for many years as German dancers at local Oktoberfests.

Rose is survived by her husband of 68 years, David Ross Stevens; her four children, Tonya Stevens (Randy Babbitt) Bozeman, MT, Tim Stevens (Denise), Noblesville, IN, Eric Stevens, Louisville, KY, and Lewis Stevens (Therese), Floyds Knobs, IN; five grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Also surviving her are five siblings: Jim, Betty, Jack, George, and Tom. Her sister Joan preceded her.

A Celebration of Life ceremony will be held for her at 3 pm Saturday, March 7, at First Unitarian Church at Fourth and York Streets in Louisville.