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Frances Rose, longtime area resident, dies at 100

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker mined her sharp memory for insights into the region's history.

By BETSY BOLGER-PAULET
Published April 13, 2005

CLEARWATER - Frances "Nana" Rose, 100, of Clearwater, who moved to St. Petersburg in 1910 to join family who settled here in the late 1800s, died Friday at Bayview Gardens. She had lived there since 2001 in one of the independent residence units until April 2002, when she moved into the assisted living tower.

Bayview's director, Judy Cunningham, remembered Rose as a popular resident. "She was a gracious lady - I don't know how else to describe her - meticulous and very charming," Cunningham said. "We are all going to miss her."

During the early 1990s, while living in St. Petersburg, she developed a lasting relationship with Mayor Rick Baker, who even took time out from his mayoral duties to help celebrate her milestone birthday last July.

The mayor fondly recalls Mrs. Rose, who was also a neighbor. Baker and his family lived only a block from Mrs. Rose in northeast St. Petersburg and would often visit her with his little girls.

"We'll miss her. I've known her for a number of years. My children liked to play cards at her house, fish and other games, and she was always sweet to them. Though her hearing wasn't good, she was very smart. I used a lot of what she told me in my book."

Their friendship started while Baker was writing From Mangroves to Major League, a chronicle of St. Petersburg from prehistory to 2000.

While he was researching the World War I history of the USS Tampa, Mrs. Rose's name came up as a source of information. The USS Tampa sailed out of St. Petersburg to lead a convoy in the English Channel. It was lost at sea and neither ship nor bodies were ever found. Among the many sailors aboard was her brother, Harold Myers, who had enlisted in the Coast Guard when the war broke out.

Baker discovered that not only did Mrs. Rose know details and have photos of some of the sailors who disappeared in the tragedy, she was a trove of information about St. Petersburg.

Baker was also instrumental in helping Myers get a posthumous Purple Heart.

A student of astrology who was a teacher and lecturer at the Astrology Society in Washington, D.C., Mrs. Rose prophesied Baker's political future.

Upon learning her friend had political aspirations, she consulted the astrological charts and said to Baker's wife, "Joyce, someday you will be the first lady of St. Petersburg."

Born Frances Louella Myers on July 13, 1904, in Stamford, N.Y., she was the fourth of six children of Albertini and Charles Myers. In 1910, she and her family moved to St. Petersburg, where several of her mother's brothers had settled.

She attended local schools, and after graduating in 1923 from the original St. Petersburg High School, she worked as a bookkeeper at a St. Petersburg bank until she married George B. Dermody, a traveling salesman, on Oct. 27, 1924, in Tampa.

During her marriage, she traveled up and down the Atlantic seacoast while accompanying her husband on business trips. The couple had two children, a daughter named Frances, who often traveled with them, and a son, George Jr. After divorcing Dermody in the mid 1930s, she returned to St. Petersburg with the children.

Mrs. Rose then attended St. Petersburg Vocational School, where she received a diploma in manicuring and held the first manicurist license issued by the state of Florida. For years she supported her family as the manicurist at the old Soreno Hotel in downtown St. Petersburg.

In July 1941, she married tennis player Randal O. Rose of Elkton, Md., and the couple often traveled between New York and St. Petersburg until he died of a heart attack in July 1948.

She regularly attended conventions of the national astrological group and was the leader of a local astrology club. She helped found the country's first American War Mothers Cluband was president of the St. Petersburg chapter in 1960. She was also active with the Democratic Women's Club of Florida.

Mrs. Rose gave more than 3,000 volunteer hours to VA Medical Center at Bay Pines and more than 7,000 hours to Bayfront Medical Center. She also volunteered in Hillsborough County, logging 1,100 hours for veterans in the Tampa Veterans Hospital (now the James A. Haley VA Medical Center). The American Red Cross awarded Mrs. Rose a 25-year pin for her work as a Gray Lady.

Never inclined to boredom, Mrs. Rose was a fervent one-tank tripper. With three friends who shared her interest in astrology and canasta, she often traveled every Wednesday to various locations throughout the state.

She depended on her astrological charts for guidance: She mapped out routes very carefully and often said that in more than three decades of travel, the group never had car trouble or an accident. Rain or shine, the women would visit every place they thought might be interesting, eating their lunches along the side of the road, playing canasta, checking out the local sights, shopping in stores and malls, and then splurging with an evening meal at a restaurant.

Mrs. Rose once wrote a short story about her traveling experiences that she intended to send to Reader's Digest but never did. Titled Once Upon a Wednesday, it was about the adventures the women had until they couldn't drive anymore. Now the manuscript is among her family's treasures, along with her late husband's tennis trophies.

Mrs. Rose's family has left a significant mark on Pinellas history. Her mother was a member of the Anderson family, which still operates a successful lumber company in St. Petersburg. An uncle, Theodore Anderson, who came here in the late 1800s to work on the Belleview Biltmore Hotel in Belleair, founded the company and developed many local areas.

Her son, George, died in 1990. Mrs. Rose is survived by her daughter, Frances Lindley of St. Petersburg; seven grandchildren; two stepgrandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; and several great-great-grandchildren.

[Last modified April 13, 2005, 01:29:17]