Rosemarie U. (Brandt) Ayoub

Rosemarie U. Ayoub, nee Brandt, 8/14/1930-2/27/2026

Embodying love of family, the practice of personal faith, exuding warmth and welcome, laughing easily and often, expressing gratefulness, discovering and protecting the beauty of nature, experiencing the joy in music in its many forms, actively supporting others, respecting and learning about the cultures of the world, remaining useful and being generous of spirit, showing kindness, acknowledging the unpredictability of life, yet remaining a force of positivity while accepting the sorrows. These are the core values Rosemarie impressed upon her family and everyone she knew by modeling them.

Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1930, Rosemarie (or Rosi) had early memories of ice cream cones in the park, buying bags of cake crumbs from the bakery downstairs, playing with elementary school friends, and ice skating in little girl dresses. These gave way to putting out cinders blowing from burning, bombed buildings onto the roof of hers with her father after nights spent in gas masks and basements, climbing over bodies and rubble. Her father simply taught her to “always be useful,” starting with this. She loved him dearly and wanted to make him proud. As a girl, she cut and rolled linens into bandages. As an early teen refugee in East Prussia, she acted as an interpreter with the American forces stationed in her town, the very house they were in becoming the command center and moving into the basement with her mother and little brother.

Rosi rode to the farms with the supply officer in a multi-way interpretation from a Polish farmer to a Polish workman who spoke some German, to her use of grade school English lessons (at her father’s insistence), to the American officer negotiating delivery and payment of food for the army there. This ability aided also in the survival of her family in this time of scarcity and shortages. She was given supplies like sugar that her mother could trade for other necessities like soap and flour. The commander noticed she didn’t have shoes, copied her foot on paper, and sent someone to buy a sturdy boy’s pair to keep her feet warm.

At the end of the war, the Americans also provided Rosi’s family with passes to clear “Checkpoint Charlie” whenever her father was released from POW camp in Belgium and the family could be reunited. They painstakingly made their way out of the Soviet occupation zone hiding in a milk wagon, barely making the checkpoint undiscovered by Russian soldiers. They carried or wore all their belongings, riding trains when possible until destroyed lines forced them to do much walking through the war-torn land. They stopped where they had friends in southern Germany, the city of Ulm, and eventually were assigned shared housing on a farm in the small town of Pfaffenhofen-Diepertshofen. There she slept in an outer room with her father so her mother and little brother could be closer to the hearth while her knees froze one winter. She worked as a farm hand for some eggs or milk and was able to glean the fields to take wheat to the miller for flour. Her father made building blocks for the reconstruction. Her mother crocheted from factory leftovers and sold or traded her goods. Her memories were not of just the hard work, but more so the funny stories (hands too small to effectively milk the cows, having the skirt she took off in the heat of the summer haying returned to her during the winter as hay was tossed down for feeding), caring neighbors, and lifelong friends she made, some who became family - her eldest eventually married a son of her dear friend Lena.

In the years after the war while still in Germany, she went on to take business classes, and eventually found her English speaking useful again working for a car lot and mechanic. The Americans stationed there discovered they could communicate better with her with her English and her bubbly smile than at other places and soon became regulars. They asked for coffee while they waited in the American way of things. This was unheard of in Germany at the time, so the soldiers brought her a coffee maker and some starting supplies. Her boss was surprised and taken aback, but upon her explanation, he begrudgingly asked for a cup and went back to his office.

During this time her joy in music took the form of ballroom dancing. Her friend’s family had a studio and needed extra partners. Her innate abilities, friendliness, and ease of laughter made her an often requested partner. It also led her to another adventure when a student commented on how light she was on her feet, and that she’d make for an excellent fencer. All her experience in interpreting and war led her to apply for a job with the United Nations. She wanted to be part of creating a more peaceful world. Her English was deemed not quite strong enough and she was encouraged to live in an English-speaking country for a while.

And so the next big chapter in Rosi’s life began as her cousin met her at the boat dock in NYC in 1956. Manfred took her to an Automat with the classifieds in hand, and she landed a job as a nanny for a Dutch family in Manhattan. When the family returned to Europe and wanted her to come along, she said “I just got here!,” chose to stay in the States. She moved on to keeping books for the Empire import-export company in Newark, NJ. She wrote letters home and was asked to write articles about her adventures for the local newspaper there.

About two years later Manfred invited her to come to the beach with him and his dentist. She didn’t know the dentist had a girlfriend with him. As she would retell, “that didn’t matter, we were married four months later!” Rosemarie married Theodore Ayoub in New Jersey on December 13, 1958. She was much loved by his large Lebanese family and they settled right in to adding to it!

In 1959 she gave birth to the first of five children in six years (Charyn Rose 1959, Anthony Günther 1960, Erika Christine 1961, Marie Antoinette 1963, Lore Michelle 1964), a little pause, and finally the sixth child born 4 years later (Katharine Ann 1968). The first years they lived in New Jersey between Towaco and Pompton Lakes where she spear-headed the creation of a church-run daycare and preschool during the emergence of working mothers. All the diaper changing and endless supply of toddlers, plus a desire that her children learn German, led to a string of Au pairs from Germany in those years with Vroni becoming a particular favorite part of the family. Erika still has some Bestline cleaning products that Vroni tried to sell!

By the time her mother came to visit from Germany they had a home in New Jersey and, like many city people there, bought a place in the country. “The Farm” was in beautiful, rural northeastern Pleasant Mount, Pennsylvania. Her mother thought they were crazy, the barn had running water for the former owner’s cows, but not the house! There was an outhouse in the backyard and a well with a hand pump in the front yard. Time to dig. However, this property and the house she and Ted built across the street, became her beloved spiritual home after a childhood spent in the midst of war, and a shelter in the devastating loss of their son, Anthony, to Ewings sarcoma in 1973. With the dental practice downstairs and family quarters upstairs, they built a deck for a peaceful sunrise view over the Moosic Mountains in the Poconos. She had a life-long love of mountains and forests going back to Germany and trips to the Alps. Living here was a dream come true. She raised her children with Ted, taking them on long walks and teaching them German wandering songs. Rosi ran the dental practice with Ted, they had a variety of pets and farm animals, grew their own vegetables, and turned their property into a tree farm. She led 4-H clubs teaching cooking and sewing, worked to open a community center, and ran vacation Bible schools for the Methodist church, much of this with her side-kick bestie Sylvia. Rosi was her kids’ biggest advocate and cheerleader, chaperoning trips and even riding the team bus to away games.

As children grew and married, she and Ted embraced their roles as grandparents fully. Oma and Opa enjoyed travel and visited their far-flung family from back to Pfaffenhofen, Germany to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Tampa, Florida and points in between. Their home was always open to family living there as long as was needed. She celebrated the achievements in education, sports, theatre, and music with all generations. They encouraged and facilitated travel and connection with the natural world. Nothing made Oma happier than her family gathering as much as possible back at The Farm and they proudly added and converted the former dentist office until beds alone (nevermind couches and sleeping bags) slept about 18 people at one count. “The Cousins are Coming” was a favorite children’s song and rallying cry!

In later years, all this continued. She and Ted aided in caregiving his mother, Sadie. They spent many years wintering in Tampa, Florida, for proximity not just to Sadie, but dearly loved nephews and nieces also congregating in the area. During one of these winters in FL, while visiting the VA hospital with Ted, she was moved by the many patients who had served sitting in cold, clinical settings. She asked a nurse what they could use and was told small blankets that they can keep on their laps.

Rosi thought of her father’s words, “always be useful”, and went to work. She could crochet every evening, keeping her hands busy after the day’s work was done. Baby blankets were of similar size, and so those were added to her list. She didn’t do anything fancy, but what she did do was made with love and prayers for the recipients, though they were unknown to her. We wrapped them and sent them with our Cub Scouts on nursing home visits, we bagged them and took them to hospice houses and assisted living centers, we took baby blankets to the local hospital and to churches for outreach and head start classrooms, and she gave them freely to the friends of her family as new babies arrived. Blankets that didn’t pass inspection were kept for family use or given to animal rescues. As she grew older and less mobile, the time spent crocheting increased to the point of requiring carpal tunnel surgery in both wrists. In the year 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Kathy realized Rosi was turning out a blanket every few days and starting counting…about 150 that year alone! Rosi was adamant we get them into people’s laps (because “what good are they piled up here?”) and to the babies whose grandmothers couldn’t be with them, so we posted them on FB and met people in parking lots, setting up times and a table of blankets behind the car for anyone who wanted to come by.

Throughout her life her love of her family had always been clear. She will especially be remembered for her smile and always being ready to laugh. She made all feel welcome and was “Oma” to everyone’s friends, even her children’s adult friends affectionately called her Oma or Aunt Rose. She loved music and believed it could make any day or any troubles better. She expressed gratitude in both the small and big things of her daily life. And did she ever love to play games! Especially in later years, as memory failed, PTSD from her youth arose, and aches and pains of old age became difficult, these things remained: love, prayer, gratitude, music, laughter, and playfulness. Just don’t forget to bring the ice cream, chocolate, cookies, and wine!

Her spirit inspires and encourages her surviving loved ones:
daughters: Charyn (Scot), Erika (John), Marie, Lore, Kathy (Anthony)
10 grandchildren
16 great-grandchildren
Nieces and nephews and their families
She joyfully joins her parents Günther and Agnes, brother Dieter, beloved husband Theodore and son Anthony.

Rosemarie asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Green Grove Cemetery, Attn: Warner Stark, 9 Gillette Drive, Waymart, PA 18472. She also encouraged everyone to plant a tree at home or sponsor one through an organization of their choosing.

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