Carol Joan Rosen

Carol Joan (Reiman) Rosen passed away peacefully on January 2, 2026. She spent her last days and months enjoying bird song and sunshine in the loving company of visiting family and devoted aides at a small home in Florida.

Born in 1934 to John and Rose Reiman, Carol traveled far and wide during her long, adventurous, and joyful life. From her childhood years spent in Brooklyn and at her family’s beloved summer cottage in Peekskill, Carol went on to attend Brandeis University, where she studied under Leonard Bernstein and first developed her lifelong love for Pete Seeger and social activism.

Carol’s life adventure fully took flight when she met the love of her life Robert Rosen, a young medical resident whom she married in 1955 after a six-week courtship. Together, Carol and Bob trekked, studied, hiked, and explored the world, from the Amazon rain forest to active archeological digs in the Mideast to Indonesia’s orangutan sanctuaries to the wild islands of the Galapagos. Carol also found excitement closer to home, completing her college education at Montclair State University in midlife, volunteering for the Democratic party, and working at the Museum of Natural History and the Morris Museum after her family nest had emptied.

Carol’s greatest thrill by far was raising her children John, Jamie, and Peggy, and, along with Bob, sharing her love of life and the natural world with them. The family travelled extensively together but no place embodied Carol’s love for life and family more fully than a glacial lake in New York State called Lake George. For Carol, camping beside and amid Lake George’s crystalline water, pine-cloaked islands, and noble mountains was the greatest gift she inherited from her parents Rose and John, who tented on the islands for many years.

Carol and Bob went on to share Rose and John’s glorious tradition with their children and, eventually, five grandchildren. Decade after decade, Carol turned a simple island campsite into a rustic home for her family, cooking up meals at a Coleman stove, decorating the outhouse with artful prints, leading morning plunges into the gelid water with a whoop, and always, always filling the air with song, whether on a wooded trail or beside a roaring campfire surrounded by those she loved.

After Bob passed in 2013, Carol continued camping with the family on her cherished Mohican Island into her eighties. When camping became too difficult, her children purchased an island camp so that Carol could continue coming to the lake and the family tradition could carry on. This year, 2026, would have marked the first summer that Carol wouldn’t be well enough to make the trip North. As fate would have it, Carol won’t have to miss this coming season or any that follow. When the weather warms and the trees blossom, her family will carry their mom in their hearts (and in an urn) to Lake George, celebrate her life where she loved it most, and release Carol to the Adirondack winds, where she will meet again with her cherished husband Bob.

Carol is survived by her son John Rosen (Julie), daughters Jamie Rosen Scurletis (Dennis) and Peggy Rosen-Freundlich (Paul), brother Richard Reiman, and adored grandchildren Zoe, Ben, Eleni, Noah, and Daniel.

In lieu of flowers, the family kindly asks that any donations be made in Carol’s memory to the Lake George Land Conservancy.