Irene B. Rostine

Irene Scholl Rostine of Port Orange, Florida, passed away peacefully on April 22, 2025. She enjoyed a long and full life as an independent spirit, a successful entrepreneur, and an acclaimed historian. Ever the live wire, she was nicknamed “Mombo” and celebrated her 100th birthday dressed as a gangster moll from the 1930s.

Irene was born in rural Bertie County, North Carolina, on November 10, 2024, to schoolmaster James Lester Scholl and his young wife Gertrude Blythe Scholl. During the hard times of the Great Depression, she migrated to Buffalo, New York with her parents and younger brother James Lester Jr. There, she became a “Rosie the Riveter” at the Curtis Wright airplane factory during the Second World War. It was also in Buffalo that she met her first husband William Francis McPhaden, whom she married after the war and with whom she had three children: William Francis McPhaden, Jr., Michael James McPhaden, and Timothy John McPhaden.

The marriage to William ended in divorce in the early 1960s, after which Irene took up residence in Las Vegas to be near her mother who had previously moved there. The 1960s were an exciting era of explosive growth in Las Vegas. Irene took a job with the local phone company, an experience that eventually positioned her for becoming the Director of Communications for some of the big hotels on the Las Vegas Strip. Later enticed by the booming Vegas real estate market, she obtained a realtor’s license and started her own brokerage firm in 1970. Having recently married expatriate Irishman Thomas Cooper, she named her new company Shamrock Realty.

After retiring in 1988, Irene enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to follow her lifelong dream of a getting a college education. She was only a part time student so it took until 1997 to earn her Bachelor of Arts degree in History. However, she didn’t stop there. She went on to get a Master’s degree in History in 2013 at the age 88—the oldest student ever to get a degree of any kind at UNLV. Irene’s MA thesis was entitled “Our Turn: Working Women In The Las Vegas Valley, 1940-1980”. Inspired by her WWII

experience at Curtis Wright, a major part of the thesis focused recording and synthesizing oral histories from many former women war workers at a large magnesium smelting plant in Henderson, Nevada. Magnesium was strategic metal used in aircraft construction and ordnance and much of it was produced at the Henderson plant for the US war effort. To honor these women, Irene coined the term “Magnesium Maggie”.

As the centennial of Las Vegas’s founding approached in 2005, the Las Vegas Review Journal ran a three week series of articles entitled “The First Hundred Years: Portraits of Men and Women Who Shaped Las Vegas”. These articles told the story of Las Vegas and honored those people responsible for its growth. Among the “First 100” people to be so recognized was Magnesium Maggie. Irene’s master’s thesis, which is freely available from UNLV in electronic form, has been downloaded nearly a thousand times by people from all over the world.

Irene was studious but also fun loving and adventurous. In the early 1980s at the age of 62, she entered the Ms. Senior USA pageant as a contestant from Clark County (home to Las Vegas). Regional winners would compete for a trip to the finals in Atlantic City. She didn’t feel she had a particular talent to highlight, so she took a crash course in clog dancing. She clogged all the way to second place as Ms. Runner-Up Clark County, just short of a ticket to Atlantic City.

It was in the mid-1980s that she met and married her last husband Larry Rostine. These were some of the happiest years of her life. She and Larry would tour the west in their 34-foot motor home, visiting many new places and making new friends. They took up golf, square danced, and went on ocean cruises together. She also bought a pipe organ, took lessons, and developed into quite a virtuoso.

Larry passed away in 2000 but Irene continued living on her own in Las Vegas until 2017. Towards the end of this period she undertook an extensive genealogical study of her ancestors, the result of which was a richly documented, 130-page self-published history in 2015 entitled “From Castle to Casino.” She chronicled numerous generations on both her mother’s side and father’s side of the family, tracing her roots back to the Penningtons of England who inhabited the majestic Muncaster Castle for over 800 years since the time of King John and the Magna Carta. In the process, she discovered that she had two ancestors who fought against the British in the Revolutionary War.

As her mobility diminished, she moved to an independent living facility in Seattle to be near her son Mike and his wife Betsy. She moved again in 2021 to the warmer and sunnier climate of Florida to be near her other son Bill and his wife Bonnie. While age may have taken a toll on her body in these latter years, she remained as sharp as a tack mentally. She was up to date on the latest world news, was able to manage her finances and navigate her computer, and wistfully talked about getter her PhD if only she could find the right on-line courses. Not surprisingly, Irene served as President of the Residents Council at both of her senior living facilities. She was sociable, convivial, and had a love for life that will be missed by all who knew her. Even at 100 years old, it oddly feels like she has been taken too soon.

Irene is survived by her sons William (Bonnie) McPhaden and Michael (Elisabeth) McPhaden; grandchildren Megan (William Lucia) McPhaden, William (Tracy) McPhaden III, and Evan (Dana) McPhaden; and great-grandchildren Louisa Lucia, Harper McPhaden, Kennedy McPhaden, and Norah McPhaden. She was predeceased by her son Timothy McPhaden and her granddaughter Caitlin Irene McPhaden.

A Memorial Service to commemorate Irene's life and legacy will be held Thursday, May 1st at CountrySide Lakes, Port Orange, at 9:30am.