Diane Alexis Brown Rose died peacefully at her home on Atwood Road in Truro on Feb. 26, 2021 following a battle with cancer, in the company of her loving family and with the comfort of hospice care. She was 82.
She was the daughter of the late Merce and Lloyd Brown. Diane’s northern New Jersey upbringing was supplemented with summers at the Cape beginning at age four, when her parents bought the first group of the Topside Cottages overlooking Provincetown Harbor in North Truro. Her graduation from Newark State Teachers College, now Kean University, led to a master’s degree in teaching the deaf from Columbia University’s Teachers College and three years of teaching at the Bruce Street School for the Deaf in Newark.
Her marriage to Malcolm Rose in June 1964 brought her to Truro, a first-grade teaching position at the Wellfleet Elementary School, and the raising of her three children.
The 1960s rubella epidemic on the Cape caused an increase in deafness among children here. Diane helped initiate a preschool program for the deaf in 1970. The program grew into the preschool to high school Cape Cod Collaborative Hearing Impaired Program, which she taught in and led for 25 years.
“Diane Rose is one of the most outstanding teachers I have encountered in my 20 years as an educational administrator,” wrote a director of that program. “She is a warm and empathetic human being who is held in the highest respect by her students, their families, her colleagues in education and the community at large. She is a very special person and an exceptional teacher.”
Diane was also an active member of the Christian Union Church in North Truro as a Sunday school teacher, chair of the board of deacons, and member of the choir. She also represented the church in Church Women United and the Nauset Interfaith Association.
One of her cherished joys was singing with the Provincetown Choral Society, later the Outer Cape Chorale and Chamber Singers. Diane managed the Lower Cape Outreach Council Food Pantry for Truro, after helping found a small Truro Food Pantry, initially at the church. She also served on the Truro Council on Aging board, which honored her as the Senior Citizen of the Year in 2015, and was a member of the commission on disabilities, the Dexter Keezer Fund board, and Truro’s Community Emergency Response Team.
Diane was one of a kind. When asked recently how she would like to be remembered, she said as a positive person with a sense of humor who thought about others more than she thought about herself. No one who knew her could argue with that description.
She was the beloved wife of Malcolm Rose; the mother of Susan Garrett, Kim Rose, and Mark Rose; the grandmother of Amber Rose and Noah and Selah Garrett; the sister of Joan Colombo of New Jersey, Jeff Brown of New Jersey, Sue Gatto of Wellfleet, and Bonnie Bonse of North Truro; and the cherished friend of many.
A celebration of Diane’s life will be held in July. In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations in Diane’s name be made to the Christian Union Church, P.O. Box 187, North Truro 02652; Lower Cape Outreach Council, 19 Brewster Cross Road, Orleans 02653; or the Outer Cape Chorale and Chamber Singers, P.O. Box 474, South Wellfleet 02663.
