Mrs. Rosemarie Roebuck

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she attended schools in Charlestown, Massachusetts; Charleston, South Carolina; Ithaca, New York; Middletown Rhode Island; Norfolk Virginia; and Gretna, Louisiana as her father’s Naval career moved up and down the East Coast. She graduated from Soule Business College in New Orleans.

During high school, she began her secretarial career when her church (a block away from her home) had burned and her minister needed office space during the rebuilding. When thanking her mother for the use of the family’s old, unused servants’ quarters behind the house, the minister mentioned that all he needed then was a secretary to which Mother Rhymes volunteered Rosemarie, beginning her career for her.

Following her graduation from Soule Business College, Rosemarie worked in Civil Service at the Algiers Naval Base in Louisiana, the Federal Building in Boston, and Natick Research and Development Laboratories in Massachusetts before going on to more than 20 years of working as co-owner, vice president, typesetter, and everything in between at the Roebuck family owned and operated, Natick Printing Company, in Natick, Massachusetts. Also, during her 24-year residency in Ashland, Massachusetts, Rosemarie was a “Rotaryanne,” serving as stage decorator for many Rotary Club fundraisers and also served on the Ashland School Committee, where she lost her first bid by 19 votes (her German shepherd was sick and she was therefore unable to campaign the last weekend of the election), but went on to win the following year by 400 votes (considered a landslide in the small town of Ashland) and continued running unopposed thereafter.

After moving from Massachusetts to Mississippi, her secretarial career concluded after over 20 years as an administrative assistant at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

In Mississippi, Rosemarie was an active member of St. Mark’s United Methodist church, where her parents were charter members. It was there that she spent 25 years, with the help of her husband and son, writing and dressing the church’s sign every week. She was also an active participant at Galloway Memorial Methodist Church where she often helped put together the church’s newsletter.

Rosemarie loved words and reading, wild flowers, seashells, and ringers, and scrapbooking, sewing, and crafting. Outside of her hobbies, she found immense joy and pride in homeschooling her granddaughter from the ages of 6 to 15 and serving as roadie for her son who performs as Inky the Clown all over the southeast.

Rosemarie was preceded in death by her husband of fifty-one years, Arthur John Roebuck Sr. and her parents William Stewart and Muriel Catherine Rhymes. She is survived by her sons Arthur John Roebuck Jr. and his life partner, Mary Alice Lee, Jeffrey Rhymes Roebuck (Inky the Clown), and his wife, her daughter-in-law, Tiny Dinkins, granddaughter Cameron Rhymes Roebuck and her husband, Derek Bond, and her beloved German shepard of 10 years, Bimy (who’s name is actually an acronym of the names of all the German shepherds that Rosemarie previously owned).

A visitation for Rosemarie will be held Friday, March 10, 2023 from 12:00pm to 1:00pm at St. Marks' United Methodist Church in Brandon, MS. A funeral service will follow at 1:00pm at St. Marks' United Methodist Church.

Rosemarie’s final church sign, put up the day before her passing, aptly reads:

“Give up sadness

replace with gratitude”