Rosemary Scanlon Miller

Rosemary Scanlon was born in Alliance, Ohio in 1927 the oldest of three children. She grew up in the old brick house on Union Avenue that was built in the 1800's. It was a typical Irish household and both of her grandmothers at one time lived with their family, and in Rosemary's later years she took both her mother and mother in law in to live with her. Her father smoked a cigar and pipe and she recalled when she had an earache he would blow smoke in her ear to make it feel better. They had grape vines in the back yard and made wine and she remembered the family doctor stopping by their house on cold winter nights to get some wine from her father.

She graduated from Alliance High School and thought about becoming a nurse but during the war years worked as a telephone operator. She remembers helping family members contact their service men during those years. Her younger brother Bob went to the Naval Academy and his picture was on the cover of Seventeen Magazine in 1954 and she kept a framed copy with her the rest of her life.

She met James Miller when he returned from the war and they married in 1946. From 1947 to 1957 she had 8 children and was the traditional stay at home mom and doted on her children and 12 grandchildren. (Picture of her as a young mother here and here.) They later moved to Cleveland in 1966 and settled in Florida in 1978. She became a Tampa Bay Rays baseball fan (see picture).