Rosemary Jo Trietsch

Service: 2 p.m. Saturday at New World United Methodist Church. Interment will follow in Moore Memorial Gardens. A celebration service to be held in Georgetown is pending final arrangements. Visitation: 6:30 to 8 p.m. Friday at Moore Funeral Home.

Memorials: May be made to the Wesleyan Homes Benevolent Fund, P.O. Box 486, Georgetown, Texas 78627.

Rosemary Jo McColm was born Feb. 5, 1938, in Winchester, Ind., to Joseph Henry McColm and Iona Ruth Frazee McColm. When Rosemary was 15 years old, her family moved to Colorado, where her father had taken a job at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Project. Her mother taught art and other subjects in schools in Indiana and Colorado. Rosemary graduated from the University of Colorado in 1960, and went to California to teach. She went back to Boulder, where she met the man she would marry singing in the church choir. His bass to her soprano led them through a life that exemplified family values and have left a legacy that looms large in the lives of many.

Rosemary Jo McColm married Hollis Dean Trietsch in 1962. Two children, Paula and Joseph, followed at two-year intervals. They settled in Arlington in 1966, and Rosemary remained there until 2009. She taught several generations of second graders at Wimbish Elementary. She received her master's degree in reading education in 1982 from North Texas State University. She was proud to be a member of Phi Beta Kappa and several other professional groups.

A lifelong United Methodist and active member of New World UMC, she seldom missed a choir practice. She was also active in the UM Women, and many other UM ministries. She was involved in her children's activities and other organizations around Arlington. After her retirement from AISD and during the arrival of her grandsons, she founded a prayer quilt ministry. She was a Stephen Minister.

After her husband died in 2000, she began spending increasing amounts of time in Georgetown with her daughter's family to be closer to her two beloved grandsons. In 2008, she decided that she wanted to move to Georgetown full time, moving into the Wesleyan Senior Apartments in 2009. While here, she had participated in the residents' councils of her facilities, and attended First United Methodist Church, singing in the senior adult choir and attending Sunday school and Bible studies.

Mom, we rejoice that you sing with the angels. You taught us what it meant to bloom where you were planted, and how to stay strong in the Lord despite great adversity.

Survivors: Rosemary is survived by her daughter, Paula Trietsch Chaney, and family, Rick, Jacob and William Chaney of Georgetown; her son, Joseph Trietsch, and Naomi Briones of Sierra Madre, Calif.; a large extended family; and many friends.