Rose "Charles" Fouchey

Obituary of Rose (Charles) Fouchey Rose Charles Fouchey passed peacefully at William Beaumont Hospital in Troy, MI, from congestive heart failure, on August 23, 2011, where she was surrounded by her immediate family and dearest friends. Born on Valentines Day in 1912, she was just six months shy of her 100th birthday. "My mother was spectacular," said her youngest daughter, Joani Zwada. "She was courage and grace and faith. Her generosity of spirit was limitless, like her prayer list which grew exponentially. She cared for my dad all by herself from the day he took sick, throughout the years of his debilitating illness, to the day he died while lying right beside her." Refusing to let a little thing like The Depression get her down, she worked her way through college doing everything from scrubbing floors to picking cherries, to earn her degree in elementary education from what is now the State University of New York at Brockport, an education she put to use teaching third grade at St. Gerard's in Detroit for over twenty years. "My sister and I weren't crazy about the way she referred to her students as "my kids." We were a little jealous of that. But that's how she felt about each and every one of them," Joani said. Although her "kids" completed their required curriculum, Mrs. Fouchey didn't stick to the books. After spending days shaking a jar of sweet cream into freshly "churned" butter, her "kids" literally devoured their newly acquired knowledge when she spread it on crackers for them to enjoy. Her bulletin boards were always memorable, like at Christmastime when a tinsel tree sparkled from one and the Magi journeyed to the stable on another. To ward off winter boredom, Mrs. Fouchey unfurled a roll of paper across the rear blackboard for her "kids" to create a mural. Decades before Disney ever heard of a character named Nemo, Mrs. Fouchey's mural took her "kids" under the sea where they were introduced to clown fish, coral reefs, sharks as big as school buses and other awesome creatures. When one family was advised to remove their son from mainstream education and place him in a "special" school, she convinced them to give her one year with him. He graduated from St. Gerard's and eventually became an engineer. Others became doctors or lawyers or assembly line workers or parents who begat doctors or lawyers or assembly line workers, because like all teachers, Mrs. Fouchey's legacy of learning passes through generations. Absorbent children's minds weren't the only miracles she witnessed. "My mother and grandmother had an audience with Fr. Solanus Casey during World War II," Joani said. "My dad's little brother was dying. Fr. Solanus asked them to return with his pajamas. We'll always believe my uncle is one of Fr. Solanus's miracles, because he survived, fathered five children and recently passed in his eighties. My mother's story about this was filmed and broadcast by Catholic TV. She watched the video repeatedly. We all did. I'll miss her so." Rose Fouchey was born two months before the "unsinkable" Titanic went down, and she passed the day the largest earthquake in recent history rattled the eastern United States. The quake sent tremors into her Michigan hospital room making her IV bags sway and her bedside table roll into the wall. "I would expect nothing less from my mom's departure than a day marked with historic significance," said her eldest daughter, Rosanne Snapp.