Susanne MacDonald Rose

Susanne (Susan) MacDonald Rose passed away peacefully on December 17, 2019 after a courageous battle with dementia. She was born on May 1, 1943 in Wilmington, Delaware to the late Dr. Kenneth Gordon MacDonald and the late Doris Johnson Hults. She and her mother shared a lifelong close mother-daughter bond. Susan was married to Mark Rose for 53 years.

Susan grew up in Wilmington, Delaware with her maternal grandparents, Ben and Mary Johnson, while her mother toured as principal harpist in the Fred Waring orchestra. When her mother remarried, she and her mother and stepfather and stepbrother (Arlo Hults) relocated to Manhasset, New York where she spent her teenage years and graduated from Manhasset High School with highest honors. She placed 2nd in the New York State High School Science Fair for experiments to detect cancer in mice. She matriculated to Mt Holyoke for two years and then transferred to the University of Rochester where she received a B.A. in biology, cum laude. She met Mark at the University of Rochester on a ski trip to Vermont in her junior year and skiing became their family sport. She subsequently earned a Master’s degree in hospital administration at the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health.

She began her career interning under Dr. Cecil Sheps at Beth Israel hospital in New York City and then as a hospital administrator at Misericordia and Fordham hospitals. After starting a family, she returned to part-time employment in consumer health marketing with Bristol-Myers and then later re-invented herself as a medical malpractice paralegal at two law firms in northern New Jersey after earning a certificate from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Susan and Mark raised their two sons in Mendham, NJ where they lived for 20 years. She was a lifelong skier and an avid tennis player, golfer and swimmer. She and Mark won several mixed doubles titles in their local town tournament. One of her proudest accomplishments was founding SEEK (Saturday Enrichment Experience for Kids), a program which provided extra-curricular studies for gifted and talented middle schoolers. In the 1990s, she and Mark took up line dancing and became avid devotees when it became popular in the NY/NJ area. She and Mark relocated to Cary, NC in 1997, where she took up golf and continued her tennis, swimming and book club activities. She served as founding board member and President of the Cary Tennis Association and for several years co-chaired a women’s tennis event at Cary Tennis Park that raised funds for InterAct in Raleigh. She also formed a women’s Nine and Wine group at Prestonwood CC that combined nine holes of golf followed by a glass of wine and fellowship with her golfing friends.

When her mother developed dementia, Susan served as her principal caregiver for 7 years as well as informal “social director” at the Brookdale Cary facility. Throughout her life, she focused on caring for others – family, colleagues and friends old and new. She was a member of the Kirk of Kildaire, and a long-time contributor to the University of Rochester (George Eastman Circle), the NC Symphony (Musician’s Circle) and several other charities.

A memorial service will be held at the Kirk of Kildaire on Jan 18 at 11:00 AM.

Surviving are her husband Mark, sons Todd Rose (wife Katherine Robinson) and two granddaughters, Caroline and Lucia of Menlo Park, CA and Brant Rose (wife Toochis Morin) of Los Angeles, CA and stepbrother, Arlo Hults (wife Sonja and son, Hunter) of Vista, CA and sister-in-law, Jane Rose Speiser of Imperia, Italy.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in memory of Susan Rose to Duke Department of Neurology Alzheimer ’s Disease Research Fund (https://neurology.duke.edu/about/give-department/alzheimers-disease-research-fund).

Arrangements with Brown-Wynne Funeral Home, Caty.