Kern County CA Archives Obituaries.....Rose, John S. January 31, 2006 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: K T bluewolf@onemain.com February 18, 2006, 11:50 pm The Tehachapi News John S. Rose March 13, 1915 – Jan. 31, 2006 John S. Rose, a retired engineer from the Lockheed Corporation and a World War II veteran, died on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006 in Bakersfield at the age of 90. The cause was respiratory failure following declining health over the past several years. He was previously a Tehachapi resident from 1994 to 2003. Mr. Rose was born on March, 13, 1915 in the borough of Kimbles, Penn., to Frank and Ida Rose. Mr. Rose grew up helping his mother and father, along with his two older brothers by taking care of their small farm in the rural and heavily wooded area of northeastern Pennsylvania. Kimbles was too small to support a public school system and Mr. Rose attended a public school in nearby Hawley, graduating from Hawley High School in 1933. John was eager to continue his education at Pennsylvania State University but his parents lacked the money necessary to support him through school. Intent on pursuing his educational dreams, Mr. Rose worked on road construction projects throughout Pennsylvania for three years before saving enough money to begin his college studies at Penn State in 1936. Motivated by his attendance as a young boy at a public parade for Charles Lindbergh in Philadelphia, shortly after Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic crossing in 1927, Mr. Rose pursued aeronautical engineering as his chosen major. Following graduation from Penn State in 1940 with his degree in engineering, Mr. Rose was enrolled in graduate engineering studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when the Lockheed Aircraft Company hired him for employment in Burbank. Given just two weeks to move, John borrowed his parents' only car and drove across the country on Sept. 23, 1940 to begin his career with Lockheed. His early engineering assignments at Lockheed included design work on the Hudson Bomber, P-38 Lightening and the development of the XP-58. Shortly after his arrival in Southern California, Mr. Rose met Ms. Thyra Naughton on a blind date and they were married on Valentine’s Day in 1942. John and Thyra became proud parents on Jan. 1, 1943 with the birth of their first son. Despite possessing a wartime deferment from the draft board for his critical design work at Lockheed, Mr. Rose volunteered for military duty and entered the Navy in 1944 at the age of 29. He was commissioned an ensign and assigned as the engineering officer aboard Landing Ship Medium, LSM 440, in December of 1944. With a second child on the way, Mr. Rose's ship departed for the western Pacific at the end of 1944. Capable of landing heavy tanks and troops directly on the beach, Mr. Rose's ship participated in the Okinawa invasion of April 1945 by landing elements of the first Marine Division. Following the end of the war in August, then Lt. J.G. Rose's ship was kept in the Far East into 1946, returning to the Unites States later that year. Mr. Rose was subsequently discharged from military service and resumed his employment with Lockheed. A variety of aircraft assignments followed over the years, which included design work on the Constellation airliner, the giant Constitution and C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and the XF-90 and F-94 fighters. However, Mr. Rose's engineering achievements accelerated rapidly in the 1960s with design proposals for the Apollo moon landing program, supersonic commercial transport and finally culminating as a project engineer on the development of the Lockheed L1011 TriStar commercial airliner. Retiring from Lockheed in 1976, Mr. Rose returned to his favorite pastimes of gardening, fishing and golf. Mr. Rose is survived by his loving wife Thyra, of 64 years; three of his four children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild. A graveside service was held Saturday, Feb. 11, at the Tehachapi Public Cemetery, Eastside. Wood Family Funeral Service handled the arrangements. Additional Comments: Volunteer submission - No relation to the deceased. No other information available from submitter. http://www.tehachapinews.com/obits.html Volume 106 - No. 44 Feb. 15-21, 2006 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/kern/obits/r/rose2121gob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 4.7 Kb