Maryrose Calder

Calder, Maryrose NEW PHILADELPHIA, Ohio Maryrose "Chub" Calder, formerly of Tall Timber Road, New Philadelphia, Ohio, died at noon Monday, January 5, 2009, at Hennis Care Center, Dover, Ohio. She was 81. Born April 9, 1927, she was the only child of Christian and Alma Rosalie (Platt) Dahlem in Colonie, N.Y. She grew up during the Great Depression on Consaul Road in Colonie, where six of her father's brothers and seven of her mother's siblings made their homes within walking distance. Dubbed "Chubby" by her family because of her tall, thin build, Maryrose was a daddy's girl with a wicked sense of humor and unruly red hair. One Christmas she was delighted to receive a silver-plated vanity set and a new shotgun. As a teenager, she played ragtime piano and accordion in her uncle's band, fished and hunted rabbits with her dad and rode a Harley-Davidson motorcycle as part of the Civil Defense Corps. Despite earning the title "boy magnet" in her Mt. Pleasant High School yearbook, she married her childhood sweetheart, Lawrance F. Calder on March 2, 1946, after waiting for him throughout her school years while he served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. They left Colonie in 1957 and moved to Marlboro, Mass., where they lived on James Avenue until 1965. They then moved to Ohio when Larry helped found Amko/Dover Cryogenics. Maryrose graduated in December, 1968, from the Tri-County School of Practical Nursing in Coshocton and passed the state boards in March 1969. She worked as a licensed practical nurse at Union Hospital in Dover from 1971 to 1984, where she was a senior LPN on the first floor. She was a nurse at Aultman Hospital in Canton from 1969 to 1970. After Larry's death in 1991, Maryrose played piano with the Melody Makers, a Dover senior citizens band, until her health began to intervene in 2002. She lived her last five years at Hennis Care Center in Dover, where many of her caretakers were her colleagues when she was a staff nurse there in the 1990s. She continued to tend her fellow residents while she lived among them, helping them at dinner, playing piano for sing-alongs and sometimes loudly instigating revolts. True to lifelong form, Chub comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. Maryrose is survived by her daughter, Lori and son-in-law Darryl Trump of Dayton, Ohio; daughter, Chris and son-in-law Brian Kostelnik of New Philadelphia; and son, Mike Calder of N.C.; as well as her best friend, Helen Penick of New Philadelphia. Also surviving are five grandchildren. Deepest gratitude and admiration goes to the nurses, aides and staff of Dover Hennis Care Center's Homestead Dementia Care unit, who do the work of angels. Funeral services are at 10 a.m. Thursday, January 8 at Griswold Funeral Home, 1867 State St., Schenectady, N.Y. Interment will be in Memories Gardens, Colonie, N.Y. To share your memories of Maryrose/Chub or offer condolences, visit scott-barbieri.com