Pine Valley, Oregon
Rosa Marie Sargent, 85, of La Grande, a former longtime Pine Valley resident, died Dec. 7, 2004, at a La Grande care home.
There will be a Celebration of Life service for her at 2 p.m. Saturday at Loveland Funeral Chapel in La Grande. Visitations will be until 7 o’clock tonight and from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Loveland Funeral Chapel.
There will be a memorial service at Pine Haven Cemetery in Halfway on Memorial Day of 2005. Family and friends are invited. The ceremony will be announced again at that time.
Rosa was born on Oct. 3, 1919, at North Pine to Italian immigrant parents Lorenzo and Margherita Falcinella Del Curto. She attended grade school at North Pine and then attended high school at Halfway. She completed her college education at Eastern Oregon Normal School in La Grande and at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
She first taught school at Adrian and then at Cornucopia, a gold-mining town near Halfway.
Rosa married and moved to the Portland area where she taught for 10 years before returning to Halfway. She taught Grades 1-8 at the one-room school at Pine Town and then at Halfway Elementary School until 1960.
She then moved to Oregon City where she finished out her teaching career. She held a lifetime teaching license in Oregon and was a life member of the Oregon Education Association.
She had been a member of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 7847, in Halfway since 1956. She also was a member of the Catholic Church.
Rosa moved to La Grande in 1997 to be closer to her daughter. For the last 2 years she had lived at Country Rose Manor, an adult foster care center, where her family said she was wonderfully loved and cared for.
Survivors include her daughter, Carol Wilhelm of La Grande; her sister, Catherine Wilson of Eugene; her sister-in-law, Courtney Del Curtis; her granddaughter, Joni Wilhelm of Durango, Colo.; and numerous nieces and nephews and relatives still living in Italy.
She was preceded in death by her siblings, John, Reno, Lawrence and Jerry Del Curto, Rita Motley and Lena Wyatt.
Used with permission from: Baker City Herald, Baker City, Oregon, December 17, 2004
Transcribed by: Belva Ticknor
