Obituary of Rosemary Z. Donovan

FUNERAL MASS LIVESTREAM  HERE

Rosemary Zimmeth Donovan

Bangor - Rosemary Zimmeth Donovan, 100, died March 7, 2025, peacefully and with family, after a brief decline at Maine Veteran’s Home in Bangor, ME where she had resided for the last year and a half.

She was born in Mankato, MN on August 15, 1924, the youngest of the 11 children of Charles Zimmeth and Mary Hagen Zimmeth. Orphaned of both parents as a young child, she became a ward of the county and worked in exchange for her room and board, only seeing her siblings at school. Rosemary graduated from Loyola High School, Mankato, in 1943 and then headed west to stay with some siblings who had moved to the San Francisco Bay Area for war-time jobs. For a time, she worked in a civilian job on the Alameda Naval Base. Thanks to an encouraging aunt, she found out about a scholarship and enrolled in a nursing program at the College of Saint Catherine (now St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN. She recalls that, along with free tuition, room and board, she received $10 a month in spending money. She completed her RN training there and received her nursing license in 1948.

She convinced friends to move with her back to California, where they lived with her beloved sister Alice and her young family in the Bay Area while they got established as nurses. Inspired by her brother Ray who had served in WWII, and desiring to be of service, she joined the Navy in 1951. She was stationed at San Diego Naval Hospital. She shared the following about her first months there, “They tried to take us nurses and teach us how to march. Each afternoon this officer was assigned to put us through our paces, but we weren’t very good at it, and he never got us to take it very seriously. They never did put us in a parade!” At the Naval Hospital she cared for soldiers returning from the Korean War and their families. She particularly liked working with the premature babies and seeing them thrive. She made life-long friends with eight other nurses. They stayed in touch with each other via a ‘Round Robin’ letter that continued for an unbelievable 70 years.

On base she also met Timothy Donovan, a young Lieutenant from Houlton, Maine. They were going to get married after they were both discharged in May of 1953, but her discharge physical revealed that she had contracted tuberculosis. They postponed their plans while she received six months of treatment at a sanitorium in the hills of San Jose. They were finally married on February 11, 1954, at San Lorenzo Parish, CA. For a short while they tried farming back in Houlton, Maine. After having their first child they decided to move back to the Bay Area where Tim pursued and earned his CPA. They had three more children.

In 1970 the family moved back to Maine where Rosemary took up nursing again, working for local hospitals and eventually retiring from the American Red Cross where she had enjoyed being on the road with fellow nurses for blood drives. She was part of starting the first nurses’ union in Maine and was elected by her peers to be their first negotiator.

A lifelong Roman Catholic, Rosemary was an active member of St. Mary’s Parish, Bangor (now part of St. Paul the Apostle Parish). She and Tim taught religious education, and later, among other ministries, she visited the sick as a Eucharistic Minister, was an officer in the Sodality of Mary, and volunteered for many years at The Attic (a secondhand store that supports Catholic education). She was also active in the Hampden Garden Club and a was regular participant in art classes and other events at the former Hammond Street Senior Center in Bangor.

Rosemary was a life-long learner and adventurer. She hand-sewed the first tent that she and Tim used on their many years of family camping trips. She took piano lessons. Later she studied art and art history. She and her dear friend and sister-in-law Justina Donovan Giles joined the Senior College at the University of Maine and traveled to Italy on study tours. She also went on parish pilgrimages to Canada, Italy, and France (famously leaving her grocery list and not her prayer intention list at the grotto of Lourdes). She stayed up with technology and innovation and enjoyed learning new tricks from her grandchildren. She loved to play cards and games and to visit the slots with friends. She expressed her creativity through sewing, baking, painting, card making, and other crafts. Her annual homemade Christmas cards became collectors’ items for those lucky enough to received them. And she stayed engaged in the news and democratic civic life to the end. Her greatest joy, however, was to be among family, quietly enjoying the shenanigans.

After Tim’s death in 1994 she began making annual trips back to CA, staying with her sister Alice for 2-3 months at a time and receiving their sister Mary, from MN, who would join them. Mary died at 101 in 2019 and Alice at 103 in 2024.

Thanks to her stay at Maine Veteran’s Home, Rosemary was able to take part in the October 2024 Honor Flight Maine trip to Washington, D.C. and received the honor of being chosen to lay the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. She was inducted into the Military Women’s Memorial, Washington, D.C. and received their Living Legend Proclamation.  She will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Maine Health Care Association posthumously in May. Rosemary was finally able to be in a parade when she took part in the Bangor Veteran’s Day Parade at the age of 99 representing women in the military.

Rosemary had a gift for making and keeping friends; for being a calm, friendly, and gently humorous presence wherever she went; and for accepting and adapting to life’s changes and challenges with grace and trust in God.

The last of her siblings and their spouses as well as Tim’s, Rosemary is survived by: son Patrick Donovan and daughter-in-law Kim of Veazie, their daughter Mary, her wife Kristen and their son Fintan of Bangor, and their daughter Laura Smith, her husband Ezra and their son Gabriel of Topsham;  daughter Judith Donovan, a Sister of St. Joseph of Lyon currently living in France; daughter Anne Donovan-Fortier and son-in-law Kurt Fortier of Bangor, grandson Joseph Blier of Albany, NY, grandson Timothy Blier, his wife Emily, and their daughter Lorna of South Portland; son Bart Donovan and daughter-in-law Lauren of Portland, their daughters Delaney and Avery of Portland; and many loving nieces and nephews and their families around the country.

The family wishes to thank the staff and residents of Maine Veteran’s Home for their loving care and presence, as well as Northen Light Hospice for their services in her final days.

Her funeral Mass will be celebrated on Saturday, March 15, 10am at St. Mary’s Church (768 Ohio St., Bangor). The Mass will be livestreamed HERE 

A reception will follow at the St. Mary’s Parish Hall. In continuation of her life of service and generosity, she chose to be an Anatomical Donor with the University of New England’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. When her cremains are returned, she will be buried with Tim at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Bangor.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in Rosemary’s name may be made to Saint Paul the Apostle Parish, 207 York St., Bangor, ME 04401 or to Honor Flight Maine at P.O. Box 699, Brunswick, ME 04011 or HERE