November 5, 1927 – July 22, 2019
CUMBERLAND – -Rosemarie Spalding died peacefully in her sleep on July 22, 2019. She was in the company of her daughters and the kind, loving staff of The Mooring on Foreside in Cumberland where she lived and thrived the final nineteen months of her life. She will forever be remembered for her sense of humor, wit, grace and compassion.
Rosemarie’s deep love for her family, home and gardens, books, music, birds, friends and her darling dogs were the source of joy and enrichment throughout her life. One of three sisters, she was born on November 5, 1927 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her father, Guy, was a science and physical education teacher as well as the principal at the school where all his girls attended. Her mother, Irma (née Weber), had been an elementary school teacher. Irma loved music, birds and food, passions she shared with her daughters. Rosemarie’s two sisters were much older, 10 and 12 years respectively; Carol and Cynthia.
She spent Thoreau-esque, often solitary childhood summers in Rhinelander, rural northern Wisconsin, in a cabin built by Guy on Long Lake. The cabin had no electricity and no indoor plumbing. She walked the woods and fished off the dock or from the canoe built for her by her father.
Upon graduating nursing school at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Rosemarie returned to Milwaukee where she worked briefly with polio patients, and then as a private duty nurse. It was there, while caring for his uncle, she met William Gold. William, a Yale and University of Wisconsin-educated attorney was in practice with his father, Walter Gold.
Rosemarie and William fell in love and were married in June 1953. They shared common interests in literature, education, art, music, fishing and baseball. They also loved children. Within a year their first child, Wally, was born. Four more siblings, Martha, Jennie, John and Ann, were added to the family in the next six years. Life was wonderful for the Golds. The house was filled with love and laughter. A favorite family activity was to gather around Rosemarie at the piano and sing songs while William played along on his ukulele. Tragically, William died in a car accident in just before Thanksgiving in 1960.
In 1963, she married Max Hirshey and moved to Larchmont, a suburb of New York City. The family frequently piled into the car to make song-filled, seven-hour car rides to their second home “Willow Farm” in South Paris, Maine. In 1979, she moved to Willow Farm following her divorce from Max. Rosemarie discovered, purchased and moved to her cherished home on Heron Cove off Winnegance Lake in Phippsburg in 1985. Her home and gardens were a highlight of the Sagadahoc House and Garden Tour in 2016.
Rosemarie was engaged in the peace and feminist movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s; she had a passion for social justice that she instilled in her children. She went back to school in the 1970s to become a psychologist and special education administrator working in school systems in New York and in Maine. She later served as a Family Court Mediator and fully retired in the 1990s. Rosemarie volunteered at the Bath library, attended book clubs, senior college classes and traveled, dined and laughed with friends on Elderhostel trips to China, Italy, Belize and Greece.
Rosemarie again suffered deeply in 1964 when her five-year-old son, John Karl Gold, died due to injuries from a car-bicycle accident. She is survived by her beloved children: Walter Gold, Martha Mance, Jennie DunKley and Ann Adams; their spouses Liz Fox, Robert Mance and Cliff Adams; her grandchildren: Ryann Fournier, Tad Gold, Christopher Mance, Caitlin Mance, Sam DunKley, and her great grandson, Freeman Fournier.
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