Catherine Elkin Rosen

Catherine Elkin Rosen, born on October 31, 1927, departed this earth on January 18, 2021.  Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Cathy was the daughter of Catherine and William Elkin, as well as the big sister to William, James and Elizabeth Shannon Elkin.   

Cathy proved early on to be a very capable student.  After graduating from Parker HS, she went on to attend Chicago State College graduating with a degree in Math Education in 1949.  Next, Cathy received a Master’s Degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1951. 

It was in Ann Arbor, Michigan that Cathy met and married in 1950, her husband of 57 years, Dr.  Sidney Rosen.  Sid was a fellow student in the University of Michigan’s psychology department who was working on his PhD. From that marriage, four children came, Mark, Dan, Steve and Amy.  And from those four children, and their spouses Janis (Mark), Lisa (Dan) and Lisa (Steve), Cathy was the proud grandmother of Dr. Lindsey Moore, Adam Rosen, Dr. Philip Rosen, Dr. Jennifer Rosen, Andrew Rosen and Hannah Rosen. Each and every one of her grandchildren became highly successful in all measures in large part due to Cathy’s support of their educational pursuits.  Cathy was also blessed with three great grandsons, Bradley and Max Moore, as well as Zane Rosen.  She was so very fond of the several dogs that passed through her life.

Cathy and Sid, along with their two first born, Mark and Dan, moved from Ann Arbor to Brookfield, Wisconsin in 1957, so that Sid could take a position as a professor of psychology at Marquette, University in Milwaukee.  Following the move to Milwaukee, Steve and Amy came along.  And if raising four young children, each born eighteen months apart, wasn’t challenging enough, Cathy began working on her PhD at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.  Cathy was an instructor at the school, teaching Introductory Psychology.  Next, she worked as a clinical psychologist first for Milwaukee Public Schools, and later with the Easter Seal Child Development Center. 

In the summer of 1968, Sid accepted a job at the University of Georgia in its Psychology Department.  So Cathy packed up the house and those four kids, and the family relocated to Athens, Georgia.   Besides learning how to assimilate her and the children into southern culture, she went to work as an assistant professor and research associate with the UGA Regional Institute of Social Welfare Research.  Shortly after the move, Cathy was awarded her PhD in Psychology from UGA in 1971.  With her new degree in hand, she became the Director of Research for the Northeast Georgia Community Mental Health Center.   Following that, she was employed as Senior Psychologist specializing in gerontology at Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia.  

Throughout her career, Cathy was a prolific author, routinely publishing scholarly articles on various aspects of community mental issues and most especially, privacy rights.  And it was in these areas of expertise that she was twice asked to serve as an expert witness to testify to both the U.S. Senate and Georgia legislature.  Clearly, in this endeavor and most others, Cathy was a trend setter, ahead of her time.

Eventually, Cathy retired from Central State Hospital to enter a new phase of her life.  Fascinated by Wall Street and the various securities markets, she became a voracious student of the investment world.  Even into her 90’s, Cathy would religiously read the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Morningstar and various investment newsletters daily.  Using her strong work ethic, discipline and attention to detail honed over the years, she became an adroit and active investor.

She and Sid travelled the world, visiting among other places, Turkey, Italy, Japan, China and many points in between.  She also remained a voracious reader for pleasure during her life, most especially fiction.  You could never go wrong buying her a book for her birthday unless she had just finished it the week before.  And until the very end, she was a constant participant in family events, enjoying holidays, birthdays, graduations, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and family reunions alike.  But like us all, she wasn’t perfect - her cooking was charitably described as “interesting”.  In her defense, she claimed that working as an institutional psychologist robbed her of her sense of taste and smell.

In 2007, Sid and Cathy relocated from Athens, Georgia to Signal Mountain, Tennessee where they took residence at Alexian Village.  After Sid’s passing later that year, Cathy kept “plugging along” life’s journey until her body gave out (but not her mind) after 93 years.  She will be missed. 

Given the exigencies of the times, there will be no funeral.  It was her wish that there be no flowers, but rather that you donate instead to your local Public radio or television stations. 

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