Rose V. Bruce

.Rose V. Bruce – Born Rose Vassallo, August 19, 1921 in New York, Rose passed away on Wednesday, February 9 after a long illness. The first of her family to be born in the United States, Rose spent her childhood on a family farm that would build her foundation of hard work and love of family. During the Great Depression years, the Vassallo family had to leave the family farm, and moved to the Bronx, New York, when her father became ill and died, and where they would begin a new life. Rose, her 3 sisters and mother struggled to make ends meet through the hard times of the 1930’s, but always maintained the aspirations they held for a better future. Rose graduated from Hunter College in 1943 with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish, the first in her family to obtain higher education.

After graduation, Rose devoted herself to the activities of the Citizen’s Committee for Children of New York, interacting with luminaries of the era including Eleanor Roosevelt. She was committed to the precept that love, humanity, education and perseverance could triumph over encumbrances and social ills. She married in 1948 to Kenneth Bruce, a distinguished attorney, and soon settled in Scarsdale in 1958, but remained without her own children. She became a devoted and revered Aunt to a flock of nieces and nephews who adored her. In her private life Rose was an intellectual, reading voraciously on a wide variety of subjects, in several languages, and a lover of the arts, especially the opera. In addition to being fluent in Italian and Spanish, Rose took up the study of German and Portuguese in her later years.

In the late 1960’s, Rose decided to set out on a new career, and after obtaining a Masters Degree in Psychiatric Social Work in 1971, also from Hunter College, she began work as a psychotherapist at the Westchester County Medical Center. She remained clinically active with geriatric and private patients well into her late 70’s, despite health problems that would have immobilized most. She has always been the very heart of her family, first as a daughter and sister during the worst of times, and subsequently was the communication hub for a large family as it grew over their years to several generations of nieces and nephews who venerate their “Aunt Rose.” Her circle of friends and admirers has spread across the country. Although never spending money on herself, Rose was generous with her resources, helping many family members get through a rough patch or get started in life.

Rose was predeceased by her husband Kenneth and her sisters Marianna and Frances, and is survived by her sister Sadie Antonia and countless nieces and nephews who hold her memory dear. The family would like to thank Drs. Meixler and Wurm and the staff at the ICU and 5th floor at the White Plains Hospital for their loving care for Rose up to the end.