Rose Mary (Rizk) DeGrasse

Rose Mary Rizk DeGrasse died peacefully at home November 5, 2022. She was one of very few---a Supercentenarian---110 years. One month. One day. A Memorial Mass will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at Church of the Nativity in Sioux City. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service. A Rosary will be held at 9:00 a.m. Rose will be interred in Calvary Cemetery next to her parents, siblings, husband, and loved family members. Meyer Brothers Colonial Chapel is assisting the family with arrangements.

Rose was born October 4, 1912 and raised in Sioux City, Iowa, the daughter of hardworking, Lebanese immigrants Elias Rizk and Jameley Joseph-Rizk from the Bekaa Valley village of Jib Janin.

Rose often recalled an idyllic, loving childhood, growing up in the Morningside home her father built in 1918, and where Rose was reared with five, very close and rambunctious siblings, Fred, Frieda, Josephine, Elmer, and Joe.

Rose attended Immaculate Conception Grade School, East Junior High School, and graduated in 1930 from East High School in Sioux City, Iowa.

As a college undergraduate in psychiatric social work, she attended two years at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She and her roommate, (her sister, Josephine) returned to Sioux City upon news of their Mother’s 1933 automobile accident. Rose, her father, and siblings rallied to take care of Jameley who became paraplegic as a result of the accident.

Thereafter, Rose attended Briar Cliff College in Sioux City and served as president of the college’s 1934 senior class and the college’s first women’s golf champion “when the greens were still sand.” She often remembered all twelve of her classmates by name and recalled the trouble they’d create together, the clothes she wore to school, and the many modes of transportation she’d take to get from her Morningside home to Briar Cliff College on the other side of town.

Upon graduation, Rose worked at Interstate Oil Company founded by her father, Elias Rizk. At the same time, she cared for her paralyzed Mother in the family home, with the constant support of her brothers and sisters…an avocation that would last 28 years until Jameley succumbed to cancer in 1961.

Nonetheless, Rose met and married Charles “Chuck” DeGrasse (nee Gresse). The couple wed December 8, 1945 upon Chuck’s return from the European theater at the end of WWII. Together, they raised three children, Barbara, Richard, and Steven.

In addition to caregiver, wife, and mother, Rose served on the Altar Societies of both Immaculate Conception Church and then-Nativity parishes and was a proud RCIA mentor. Rose was most recently a member of St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church in San Antonio.

She was an avid golfer. Rose and husband, Chuck, were long-time members of Morningside Country Club. She scored a hole-in-one there on the Par 3, 8^th hole in 1976, joining her husband and three brothers in the accomplishment. She later became a member of Floyd Golf Course. Rose would toss the pink and white golf bag in the trunk of her Buick and hit the links with “the girls” for their weekly round of golf, lunch, and a game of cards. She golfed avidly for 75 years.

In June 2009, she sold her Morningside home and moved to San Antonio, Texas to live with her daughter, Barbara and husband, Charles Knapik. She was a well-known fixture on daily walks through the neighborhood, where she’d converse with friends and acquaintances known and unknown. Rose would walk a mile nearly every day.

She is predeceased by her father (Elias) and mother (Jameley), three brothers (Fred, Elmer, and Joe), two sisters (Josephine and Frieda), husband (Chuck), and son (Richard).

Survivors include her daughter, Barbara (Charles), son, Steve, grandchildren Michelle (Donnie) St. John, Julie (Gabe) Ramirez, Scott (Jane) Knapik, Andrew (Cristina) Knapik, seven great-grandchildren including Tyler (Shelby), Rebecca, Madison, Lauren, Chas, Gabrielle, and Gavin, and two great-great-grandsons, Waylon and Hudson. She also leaves behind loving cousins, numerous nieces, nephews, their spouses and children, as well as her Lebanese compatriots, and many former neighbors and friends.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be sent to SAN ANTONIO FOOD BANK:

By Mail:             5200 Enrique M. Barrera Pkwy
                          San Antonio, Texas 78227-2209

Online:              https://safoodbank.org/donate/