ROSEMARY KAUFFMAN WILKIN

 

GRAND LAKE MOURNS ROSEMARY KAUFFMAN

 

Sky-Hi News, Thursday, September 22, 2005

By Tonya Bina

 

“She was beautiful.  She had eyes of glacial ice and hair the color of corn silk,” said Grand Lake’s Jane Kemp about one of the town’s most beloved daughters, Mrs. Rosemary Kauffman Wilkin.

 

Rosemary, 95, died Aug. 26 at her home in Wheat Ridge, Colo.  Her memorial service was held on Sept. 7.

 

Rosemary was the last remaining member of the Grand Lake Kauffman family, the family that built, owned and operated the historic Kauffman House hotel on Grand Lake, now a museum owned by the Grand Lake Area Historical Society and a building designated in the National Register of Historic Sites.

 

Rosemary’s father, Ezra Kauffman, was a trapper and prospector who pioneered to the Grand Lake area in 1877.  He took part in gold mining, and up the collapse of the mining boom, built a had-hewn framed hotel in 1892 on the north shore of Grand Lake.

 

He married Belle Stowell in 1907, his second wife, and the couple had three daughters:  Ruth, Rosemary and Margaret, all born in the Kauffman House.

 

Ezra Kauffman operated the hotel year-round until his death in 1920.

 

One of Rosemary’s chores was to fetch water from Grand Lake, in winter-time from a hole her father had carved in the ice, and carry the water buckets up the hill to the hotel.  According to those who knew her, Rosemary indicated that it was hard work.  “It made her a tough and strong person,” said friend Rosemary Collins who grew to know Rosemary in the latter years of her life.

 

Rosemary’s room was upstairs, down the hall to the left in the Kauffman House.  She was an avid doll collector, and although doll furniture now is exhibited in the parlor of the old hotel, it is said that Rosemary and her sisters actually were not allowed to play in the parlor, for the parlor was reserved for guests.

 

After Ezra Kauffman passed away, the widowed Belle ran the hotel as a seasonal operation.  The girls continued to clean rooms and help their mother until the hotel was sold in 1946.

 

A young Patience Cairns Kemp of Grand Lake befriended the Kauffman girls during the hotel years, and friendships endured beyond girlhood.  Patience’s daughter Jane Kemp said she has many fond memories of the “well-dressed Rosemary, fun-loving, beautiful and blonde” who was her mother’s close friend.

 

Jane Kemp recalled a story that Rosemary, an avid animal lover, once told her about the arrival of her younger sister Margaret in 1916.  “Rosemary told me that when her sister Margaret was born, her mother sent Rosemary over to the Cairns house (Jane Kemp’s grandmother Mary Lyons Cairns was a friend of Rosemary’s mother) during the delivery.  And when she returned home, Rosemary was disappointed it was a baby that arrived because she was hoping the cat was having kittens.

 

Always Rosemary was caring for a cat, or a dog, or even a chipmunk, Kemp said.

 

Interestingly, Rosemary was one of the first drivers to travel over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park.  She once shared with Kemp the story of how she and a friend named Kirby knew one of the contractors who worked on the road, and the contractor let them drive over the famous highway in the sky even before it officially opened to the public in 1932.

 

After the Kauffman’s hotel sold, Rosemary’s mother moved the family to Denver where Rosemary eventually graduated from West High School in Denver.

 

She then worked as a bookkeeper at a Denver meat-packing plant, then worked in accounting and bookkeeping for Safeway grocery stores in Denver.

 

She married U.S. Merchant Marine Dave Wilkin, and the two owned a grocery store together in North Denver.  Friends say Rosemary worked right up until retirement, even some time beyond.

 

Rosemary and Dave Wilkin built a home in Wheat Ridge, and in the mid 70’s they bought a second home in Grand Lake where they stayed almost every weekend.

 

By this time, the Grand Lake Area Historical Society formed and purchased the Kauffman House.  The structures was about to get some much needed restoration thanks to grants pursued by Patience Cairns Kemp; soon, Rosemary would become a part-time docent in the building, the residence where she was born, her childhood home.

 

Fellow docent Martha Zook of Grand Lake said Rosemary was fun to visit with and was always “very well-dressed,” and “proper.”  Indeed, she served as a genuine and charming ambassador for the Grand Lake Area Historical Society’s most prized building.

 

In 1979, Rosemary’s husband Dave passed away.  Then, nine years later at the age of 88, she met her companion Carl Collins of Grand Lake, and the two remained close until his death in 1991.

 

Rosemary very much enjoyed boating on Grand Lake and taking trips into Rocky Mountain National Park, friends say.

 

In 2000, however, Rosemary suffered a stroke and her health declined.  From then on, she was unable to travel to her Grand Lake home.  “It made her very upset,” Kemp said.

 

Five years later, Rosemary passed away in her home in Wheat Ridge.

 

“We all miss her because she was a lot of fun,” Kemp said endearingly “You don’t expect little old ladies to be so much fun, but she was.”

 

The beautiful Rosemary Kauffman Wilkin is survived by nieces and nephews who reside in the state of Washington.