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ROSEMARY KANE WOHLSEN

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HARBORSIDE – Rosemary Kane Wohlsen loved her family. And she loved watching the clouds sail across the sky over Penobscot Bay. Both were reflected in her eyes when she died Monday morning, May 22, 2006, after a courageous battle with breast cancer. A mother, a scholar and a classically trained singer, Rosemary spent her last days at the home she built with her husband, Bob, on Cape Rosier, near Harborside. They moved there from Lancaster, Pa., in 2002, a dream they had shared since a trip to Acadia National Park with their three sons more than a dozen years earlier. Rosemary’s death at 55 ended a life filled with song and poetry, compassion, kids and creativity, but still with so much left to do. Born April 17, 1951, in Atlanta, Ga. Rosemary Eileen grew up the sixth of eight Kane siblings in a small house in the city’s West End. As a little girl, she took the bus downtown for violin lessons and sang hymns with her family at Grace Lutheran Church. In high school, she earned a spot on Georgia’s all-state student orchestra. She graduated as valedictorian from Atlanta’s Brown High School in 1969 and went on to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. She sang there in The Notables, a women’s a cappella group. And she met Bob at a sorority-fraternity get-together her freshman year. They married when she was just 19. After the Air Force stationed Bob in Austin, Texas, Rosemary transferred to the University of Texas. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1973. She moved to Lancaster that same year. There Rosemary made her life. She gave birth to her sons and proudly called herself a mother first. She became chair of the Lancaster County chapter and later the Central Pennsylvania chapter of The March of Dimes. She nourished her faith as an active member of Trinity Lutheran Church, where she sang in the choir. She also sang soprano in The Wheatland Chorale, an acclaimed professional chamber ensemble. Her dedication as an administrator as well as singer led to the group’s first CD, widespread press coverage and a successful concert series now in its 20th season. The sudden loss of her older sister, Kathleen Beinke of Vidalia, Ga., in 1997, affected Rosemary deeply. Her father, Daniel F. Kane, died in 1980. Her other sister, Peggy, died at age three, when Rosemary was only five. As her sons left for college, one to Harvard, one to The Cooper Union in New York City, N.Y. and one to Prescott College in Prescott, Ariz. Rosemary devoted more time to scholarship. Her passion for Emily Dickinson’s poetry prompted her to earn a master of liberal arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. In Maine, Rosemary reveled in the beauty of the rocky coast. She decorated her new house with precise attention to detail. She listened to Maine Public Radio every day and spent hours on New York Times crosswords. And she collected sea glass that washed up on the beach. Rosemary also performed works by composers from Mozart to Cole Porter in public recitals at her home. A week after her 54th birthday, she sang love songs by a window overlooking the bay. Rosemary will be lovingly missed by her husband of 35 years, Robert S. Wohlsen Jr. of Harborside; her son, Andrew K. Wohlsen of Prescott, Ariz.; her son, Peter R. Wohlsen and his fiance, Juno Turner, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; her son, Marcus R. Wohlsen and his wife, Kim L. Bennett, of Oakland, Calif.; her mother, Ada F. Kane of Atlanta, Ga.; her five brothers; her vast extended family of in-laws, nieces and nephews; her friends, neighbors and her two cats, Lou and Emily. A service to celebrate Rosemary’s life will be held 2 p.m. Saturday, May 27, at Redeemer Lutheran Church, 540 Essex St., Bangor. Please consider making memorial donations in Rosemary’s name to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Brookline, Mass. or the Rosemary Kane Wohlsen Fund to benefit CancerCare of Maine, in care of EMMC Healthcare Charities, P.O. Box 931, Bangor, ME 04402-0931.

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