Rose Weed Thomson

Rose Weed Thomson was born in Davos, Switzerland, July 9, 1913, and came to America at the age of 13 months with her father, Andreas, and mother Kathrina, to settle in the Willamette Valley, where she lived in more than seven farms before the age of 16.

As a milk herder's daughter she would come by wagon with her father on the old plank roads to sell the milk downtown. At the age of 16, someone who did not know the depression, came to town and was the elevator girl at Meier and Frank a short time until she started selling furs at Ungars. She moved to San Francisco as a top floor model and succumbed to marrying Robert Lewis Leaming, a dapper and cordial man who never stopped loving her.

She bore Ronald Leaming, and later divorced before the war. She married the man on the wagon route, who owned the Vista Hills Iris nursery, noted for its Sunday garden parties drawing from Portland. With her husband, Thurlow, now a military officer in Kansas, a daughter was born, named Bonnie Kay and later returned to Beaverton where he became the first lawyer in Beaverton and later the Justice of the Peace. After two more boys were born, Gregg Thurlow and Marc Andrew, and her husband's sudden death, she became an early model of women's liberation taking her children by herself, to travel for the next 12 years, to learn as many languages as her parents knew.

In 1980 the widow married again to Earl Thomson a retired Sergeant of the downtown East Precinct and lived a joyful married life living out her dreams of traveling everywhere in her twilight years. She lived on after his death for six years until her death on December 30, 2006. She laid many seeds and we who know her, know about her endless love.

Rose visited Tri-Cities, WA frequently to participate in weddings, retirement, and serve in her son's ESL class.

Survivors include three sons, Ronald, Gregg and Marc; one daughter, Bonnie Kay; two sisters, Ursula and Emma; one brother, Andrew; and seven grandchildren, Ronald, David, Rosa, Melody, Adonis, Abby and Armen.

Memorial services will be held at Cedar Hills Community Church at 2 p.m. on Sunday, the 7th of January. Contributions can be made to Cedar Hills Community Church and earmarked for 'Mission Outreach.'