Flash player is required to view weather conditions. Download

Former 'Dayton Daily News' columnist dead at 92

By Benjamin Kline

Dayton Daily News

Rosamond McPherson Young, Dayton educator, historian and journalist, died at 8:30 a.m. Thursday of natural causes at age 92. She had been a resident at Bethany Lutheran Village in Centerville for about 15 years and had become frail the past 15 months.

Mrs. Young was a schoolteacher in Dayton for 30 years. She had a second career as a columnist for more than 25 years for The Journal Herald and the Dayton Daily News. She also was an author, writing English textbooks as well as brisk biographies of Dayton's great men and tales of her regal cat, Edith.

In many ways, she personified Dayton at its best: Educated, sophisticated, creative, yet as plain as the Wright brothers and their sister sitting at their dining room table, as whimsical as Charles F. Kettering crawling out from beneath an automobile.

In her columns, published Saturdays opposite the Daily News editorial page, Mrs. Young introduced the famous and the infamous, scarlet madams and society matrons, garden plants and people's pets, the obvious and the obscure. She mixed in some of her tweedy English and Irish acquaintances, with a spirit of adventure and fun from her trips and correspondents overseas.

"She led us to a fuller perception of ourselves and our community during her career," said a letter nominating Mrs. Young to the Dayton Walk of Fame on Oct. 22, 2003. The sentence came from the citation read aloud in 1994, when the University of Dayton gave Mrs. Young an honorary doctorate of humane letters.

Mrs. Young was a distinctive character herself, standing 5 feet, 10 inches, slender, with pure white hair and a soprano warble in her voice. She was stylish in an unobtrusive way in her English woolens and Irish plaids.

Ellen Belcher, editorial page editor for the Daily News, said, "Besides being a lovely person, Roz had the best cackle. When she laughed, she was really tickled. She also had wit and style, and she took absolute delight in being a pistol. She especially loved spilling a secret, often about herself.

"What I'll remember most fondly about Roz, though, is how she grew old. She aged with dignity and style."

"I worked with Roz many years at the library," said Nancy Horlacher, director of curatorial services at Carillon Historical Park. "I enjoyed seeing her coming in her deerstalker hat. She looked like a sleuth after a piece of information that would solve a crime. It was always a pleasure to help her solve her mysteries or find the missing pieces of information."

In her column published June 26 — which turned out to be one of her last — Mrs. Young discussed with characteristic good humor the "rather grave" subject of her burial plans. She'd been invited to join other "literary characters" buried at Dayton Woodland, she wrote, but her intentions were to be buried with her husband, whom she tenderly called "Sweet William," her mother and two stepchildren at Sugar Grove Cemetery, West Alexandria.

In her column published Aug. 14, 2004, she thanked the more than 375 readers who had sent get-well wishes and declared, "I must get back to work."

Orville in love?

Mrs. Young's 1978 book, Twelve Seconds to the Moon: A Story of the Wright Brothers, published by the Dayton Journal Herald, later reissued by the Air Force Museum Foundation and now out of print, demonstrated her skill at writing a young-adult account detailed enough to be attractive to adult readers. Or was it the other way around?

Mrs. Young "is a fount of information," said Marion Wright, widow of Wilkinson Wright, great-nephew of the Wright brothers. "She told the Wright story very well. I admire her and never miss her columns because we always learn something from them. She is a character we all value."

At the same time, Wright family members were annoyed by Mrs. Young's persistent speculation, in her newspaper column, that lifelong bachelor Orville Wright might have courted, might even have secretly married his difficult, protective, overbearing secretary, Mabel Beck.

"You could say things were not cold, but cool" between some Wrights and Mrs. Young, said Marianne Miller Hudec of Newton, Mass., a Wright grandniece. "We did not agree with her interpretation of Orville's relationship with Mabel Beck. Uncle Orv always called her Miss Beck and the tone of voice was a flat delivery. He was a shy and very proper man, a gentleman always. I know. I was in their presence many times."

That rift aside, Mrs. Young's writing found a trusted shelf in her hometown.

"I have enormous respect for her as a writer who can reach out and capture the reader's attention," said Tom Crouch, a leading Wright brothers biographer and Smithsonian Institution official. "My mother loved those cat columns Roz wrote. She was captivated."

Cat tales

The cat was Edith, a brown and fawn tabby she kept as her closest companion from about 1983 to 2001. The animal was named after Edith Sauer (1903-96), a Roosevelt High School journalism teacher and Daily News photographer who had been Mrs. Young's best friend.

"Life with a cat is better than life without a cat," she wrote. That summed up many columns on Edith's adventures, habits, illnesses.

When the animal died in 2001, one day short of her 17th birthday, Mrs. Young received more than 300 condolences and held a private funeral service for 18 of "Edith's friends."

Her books about Edith got far more attention than her serious English textbooks or biographies. During her recent illness, a handsome framed photograph of the cat overlooked her bedside.

"I think that cat had a very good press agent," said Mrs. Young's stepgrandson, New York City banker Christopher N. Young.

Roz also wrote the history of her church, Christ Episcopal downtown, then won new friends when she began attending suburban St. George's Episcopal in her later years. The Rev. Carol Hull, rector of St. George's in Washington Twp., was Mrs. Young's most recent pastor. They had God and their love for cats in common.

"Roz was in church every Sunday that she was physically able," Hull said. "We have a stained-glass window of Julian of Norwich (English medieval mystic and writer) with her cat, and Roz liked to sit by that window. We shared the belief that God cherishes our pet companions. She sent me a touching condolence note when my cat died. I admired her wit, her interest and care for people and the fact that at 91, she was still reading books on hieroglyphics and writing newspaper columns on her computer."

"I'll remember her sharp wit and her good regard for people," grandson Chris said.

Teaching in a toga

Born Oct. 4, 1912, to Dayton artist Harry McPherson and his wife, Isabel, Mrs. Young graduated from Dayton Steele High School in 1930. She completed bachelor's (1934) and master's (1936) degrees at Oberlin College, then spent most of 25 years looking after her mother, who was bedridden by illness. Her great interest in gardening stemmed from the big backyard gardens she planted to cheer up her sick mother.

Mrs. Young was a teacher of English, Latin and journalism mainly at Stivers High School. Her standards were high and students worked hard to meet them.

"We saw her as one of us, someone you could talk with and she would listen," said Charlotte Babcock, executive administrative assistant in advertising for Cox Ohio Publishing. "I was from an Appalachian background and poor, but she saw my potential and hard work. She was the key in my receiving a full scholarship to college. She has a special place in my heart. I'll never forget her."

Babcock recalls taking a humanities class from Mrs. Young around 1966. "We were studying the Roman Empire. She allowed us to dress as the Romans did, including some of those risque chariot outfits. Some of us came to class wearing sheets with grapevine wreaths on our heads. Mrs. Young dressed up, too. She always taught by example."

As an author, Mrs. Young had a diverse career. She began as a writer of textbooks, such as English Second Course (1947, 1951), for the American Book Co. The series sold more than a million copies.

Mrs. Young then turned to her hometown and its citizens for her work writing biographies. She was the author of Boss Kettering: A Life of Charles F. Kettering. She also wrote The Great Lady of First Street: Christ Episcopal Church 150 Years and A History of the Young Men's Christian Association of Dayton, Ohio 1858-1953.

Then she switched to Two Perfectly Marvelous Cats (1997) and two books about her tabby: Cat, Thy Name is Edith (1991) and Edith, the Cat Who Ate an Elm Tree (1999).

Columnist Dale Huffman wrote about Mrs. Young's 90th birthday party Oct. 13, 2002. After tributes from her friends, she was asked to speak:

"She took to her feet, and the room grew quiet in anticipation. She looked around and, after a considerable pause, finally uttered, 'Ninety. How shocking.' And then, 'I think I'll go on for a while.' "

Spelling broccoli

Being around Roz was like being in class, regardless of the location.

"One evening at dinner she opened a menu and said they spelled broccoli wrong," said Carolyn K. Young (no relation), a close friend. "Her mind is so quick."

Barbara Horner, retired Kettering school counselor and niece of the late Edith Sauer, said she cherished the connection she made with Mrs. Young, and they grew closer as the years passed. "I got to go to Roz's birthday party and meet Mrs. Kettering. It was cool," Horner recalled. Philanthropist Virginia Kettering, who died in 2003 at age 95, made one of her final public appearances when she showed up for Mrs. Young's 90th birthday party.

"She's very witty," Horner said. "Everything you say triggers a story, a connection. I liked how she would always research something, take it a step further and find out why. She wanted to explore and see. She had so much to share. I just think it's great how she rolled with the times, kept her computer and fax going. I just wish I could have spent more time talking with her about my family."

When any bit of grammar was in doubt in the Horner household, Barbara recalled, "My mom would say to go look it up in Roz's book."

The book is now closed. People who cannot spell broccoli, and many other things, are the poorer.

Mrs. Young was married to William A. Young, a widower, who was in the insurance business from 1930 to 1942 and then became a YMCA executive. He died Feb. 22, 1966, at age 79.

There are no near relatives, but Mrs. Young leaves her other stepgrandchildren, Jennifer Young of Atlanta, Ga.; and Tod Young, Sedona, Ariz.

Contact Benjamin Kline at 225-2222.