Rose Marie Wong

Rose Marie, daughter of Art and Ellinor Durand of Spooner, Wisconsin, passed away on September 8, 2025, due to complication of metastasized breast cancer at the age of 85. She grew up in her family farm in rural Wisconsin with four siblings, an older brother, Willian (Bob) Durand, now living in Superior, WI, an older sister, Marylou, who passed away due to skin cancer, about 30 years ago and a younger brother. Art Durand, pass away about 15 years due to pancreas cancer.

Rose Marie and Raymond met while she was in her second year of graduate school majoring in Sociology at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La. Raymond was in his final year of graduate school in Mathematics and receive his PHD from LSU in the summer of 1966. They dated for about 6 months and got married in a catholic church, September 17, 1966.

After graduation from LSU, Raymond spent two post-Doctoral years in UCLA (1966) and U of Washington, Seattle (1967) and landed a permanent, professor of mathematics position at University of California, Santa Barbara (1968). While at Santa Barbare, Raymond and Rose Marie raised 2 children, Andre and Stephanie. Later on, both children moved to Denver, Colorado. So, when Raymond retired in 2004, they decided to move to Denver to be closed to their Children.

Rose Marie had a very sharp and curious mind. She loved history and had many hobbies: painting, calligraphy, cake decorating and cooking. While she was at Santa Barbara, CA, she met one of the most famous Chef, Juliet Child in her adult ad class. Since then, she found out that she really enjoyed cooking and wanted to try cooking dishes from many different countries: American, Mexican, French, Italian and Oriental and others. She had since collected cooking recipes total up to 9 volumes of three ring binders.