McCabe Funeral Home

Great person, great life

Rose as a very sweet person and fun times together in high school.

Rose Marie and Carolyn were sisters to me and our "big" brother Victor, growing up in 1950s Inkster "projects." Over time, we became four peas in a pod, a source of protection from local bullies, of counsel and advice to each other on academic challenges, on the vagaries of our adolescence, on anything at all. We got into the same trouble, breaking curfews, going out of bounds, stealth cigarette-smoking, teasing and pranking. Of course, it was mostly the boys scaring the girls with dogs, worms and other creepy-crawling critters. Anything to get a rise out of Rose and Carolyn. And though these were all sibling expressions of love, they were too veiled to be taken as such. I'll forever regret how Rose Marie got a permanent V-shaped scar near her eye from a fall she suffered as her "mean" brother-cousins allowed the dog into the house through the back door as Rose attempted escape through the front door. In her haste, she fell and hit the sharp edge of the aluminum screen door. I think that was the last prank. The remorse lives ever in my heart. Carolyn and Victor will recall summer 1961 while cruising Belle Isle in mom's '56 green and white Oldsmobile, which we borrowed while she worked a night shift at Eloise Hospital. We were a car full, circling Scott Fountain when Gary U.S. Bonds' song "Quarter to Three" blasted on the radio. "Stop the car!" "Turn it up! Let me out," said one of the girls, who then began dancing in the street around the fountain. I loved my sister cousin Rose Marie just as my mother Ruth loved Rose's mom Velma, her sister cousin. --Karl Payne