| Obituary |
ROSE ALLICE With dignity, passed away peacefully on Thursday, August 20, 2009, after a very brief illness in her one-hundredth year. Devoted wife of the late Harry Allice, who predeceased her in 1991 after sixty years of marriage. Loving mother of Ronald. She was born Rose Yarashefsky in an old house at the corner of Rene-Levesque (Dorchester) and St-Urbain, the site of which is the modern-day headquarters of Hydro-Quebec, the only daughter among four children of merchants who immigrated to Montreal from Kiev in the Ukraine on their honeymoon in 1904. She went to Dufferin Elementary School across the street where Place Guy-Favreau stands today. She took sewing classes at the Baron de Hirsh Institute, and learned to read Hebrew and Yiddish at Jewish School in the afternoons. She was fluently trilingual in English, French and Yiddish. She would recount that as a young girl of eight she would stand behind the City Hall of Montreal with the other neighbourhood children and visiting dignitaries to watch the soldiers parade on Champs-de-Mars after they returned in 1918 from WW1. She remembered that many of the soldiers were seriously physically and psychologically wounded and many were on crutches. Today the site of Champs-de-Mars is paved over and functions as the parking lot of the City Hall of Montreal. Prior to coming to Canada, her mother had a small school supply business in Kiev, and her father was a master jeweller there, a trade he learned from his father in the 1890s. When her father opened a small jewellery shop on lower St-Laurent Blvd. in Chinatown around 1920, he taught Rose how to melt metal and cast earrings, brooches and rings. She also learned how to repair the mainsprings and adjust the speed of mechanical watches and clocks. In the 1930s, she studied psychology. She was an avid reader with an inquisitive mind. She was very knowledgeable about medicine and human relations, and she had a keen business sense. She married Harry Allice in 1931, and on May 12, 1945, four days after the end of WW2, she gave birth to their son, Ronald. Rose was a devoted and doting mother all of her life, and she instilled her high values in her child. She was always very astute in marketing, and in 1958, together with her husband, opened an appraisal company which she co-managed with him for thirty years. She took care of the family home and enjoyed dealing with clients and managing the office. Rose and Harry spent many years visiting friends on Greene Avenue. She also enjoyed entertaining visitors from out of town. She cared for her ailing husband at home for the 3 years prior to his death in 1991 from Alzheimer's. She was sensitive and compassionate. Rose was alert, very engaging, very sociable and had a terrific sense of humour, and she stayed that way all her life. She was "The Personality Kid." She astounded people with an incredible memory for faces, events and facts. Even in her nineties, she would recognize people she knew as a child or teenager, whom she had not seen for eighty years. She was highly respected by those who knew her. She was very opinionated, strong-willed and determined, and she would seldom back down in any dispute. She was a terrific negotiator. Her caregivers called her "Mama Rose". She was a very special person. She had an impact on all those who met her. Her doctor said she was a bright spirit even at the very end. She liked people of all cultures and races and accepted all people as equal, and they reciprocated these feelings to her. She said that some people just had an easier time in life. Many thanks to Eileen Rabinovitch and Recia Merson and the staff of the Waldorf Senior's Residence for the wonderful years she spent there, happy and socializing with her friends and living a full life right until her last month. She is survived by her son, Ronald. She was predeceased by all her brothers and their spouses, Max Yates (Rose), Joe Yates (Edith) and Stan Yates (Yetta), and by her brothers-in-law and their spouses, Al Allice (Mary), Saul Allice (Lily and Nessie), David Ellis (Flo) and Arthur Allice. She is also survived by her nephews, Ronnie Ellis, George Allice, and Arnie Allice of Toronto, and by her nieces, Eileen Dizgun Yudelson, and Barbara Rubin of Florida, and by her cousin, Ann Cooper (Roy), and other relatives in Canada and the U.S. Funeral service from Paperman & Sons, 3888 Jean Talon St. W., on Sunday, August 23 at 2 p.m. Burial at the Shomrim Laboker Congregation Cemetery, Beth Yehuda Section, de la Savane. At the family's request, shiva is strictly private. Messages of condolence may be left at (514) 739-0564, and cards may be sent to 4944 Decarie, #92, Montreal, H3X 3T3. Donations in her memory may be made to the Montreal Children's Hospital Foundation, 3400 de Maisonneuve West, Suite 1420, Mtl, H3Z 3B8 or (514) 934-4846. |
