DATE: Saturday, November 22, 1997           TAG: 9711220256

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

DATELINE: TALLAHASSEE, FLA.                 LENGTH:   45 lines

DAVID S. ROSE

Bishop David S. Rose, 84, died Nov. 19, 1997.

He was the son of Charles Solon and Amy Payne Rose. He was a descendant of pioneer Virginia and Tennessee families. Among his forebearers were John Sevier, first governor of Tennessee, James Robertson, a founder of Nashville, Tenn., and the Rev. Robert Rose, Episcopal clergyman who migrated from Scotland and established a number of churches in southwest Virginia.

Bishop Rose himself was born in Nashville in 1913, attended Hume-Fogg High School and subsequently received degrees from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., a bachelor's degree and a master of divinity degree and honorary doctorates in divinity from both the University of the South and Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Va. He did graduate work at Oxford University and Salisbury Theological College, St. Augustine College in England, St. George's College in Jerusalem, and the College of Preaching, Washington, D.C. He traveled extensively and wrote articles and several books, including his memoirs. At the time of his death, he was working on a book speculating on the afterlife. He was also an amateur magician and ventriloquist. Before becoming Bishop of Southern Virginia, he served the Episcopal Church in the Memphis, Tenn., area, 1938 to 1939; Pensacola, Milton and Warrington, Fla., 1939 to 1943; and the Church of the Good Shepherd, Corpus Christi, Texas, 1947 to 1958.

As an Army chaplain, Bishop Rose served in the Pacific Theater and attained the rank of major in the Chaplains' Corps, seeing combat in Okinawa. For two years following World War II, he served as aide to Bishop Frank A. Juhan in Jacksonville, Fla., moving to Corpus Christi in 1948 where he was rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd and involved in the founding of four other Episcopal churches.

He was elected Suffragan Bishop of Southern Virginia in 1958 and subsequently became Bishop Coadjutor in 1963, and 1970 Bishop of that diocese. He retired to Lanark Village in Florida in 1978, and then to Tallahassee, where he and his wife, the former Frances Lewis Luce, resided in the Westminster Oaks retirement home since 1991. He is predeceased by five brothers and a sister. Bishop Rose is survived by his wife; a son, Harvey Hill Luce; two grandchildren; and two great-grandsons.

A funeral will be conducted at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 2, 1997, in St. John's Episcopal Church, Tallahassee. Burial will be in Bruton Parish, Williamsburg, at a later date. Culley's MeadowWood Funeral Home is in charge. KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu