Jeanne Rose

Jeanne Rose (Jean Alice Colon)

Born January 9, 1937 – Passed June 15, 2024

Dear Friends,

Jeanne Rose loved her work, her house, her library and her garden. She loved sweet scents, heroic dogs, beautiful silverware, oysters, tomatoes, old paperweights, 500-year old herbals, stylish shoes, hand-made Christmas ornaments, the Girl Scouts, deep baths, copper distillation, antique quilts, linen sheets, featherbeds, Cowboy boots, pop-up books, football, rodeo, Lacrosse, 3-meter board diving, and vintage champagne. She loved her children, Amber A. Rose and Bryan L. Moore. She loved her friends, all of her ex-boyfriends and three or was five ex-husbands. She loved her doctors and her nurses when she got ‘sick” in 1986 and thereafter. She loved to read, to study, and to learn everything about everything. She loved her garden and especially her Lemon Verbena tree. She loved the fine arts, graceful buildings, ballet, Golden Gate Park and the California Academy of Science. She loved San Francisco, Enrico’s Sidewalk Café and Graffeo coffee.

She was sad to give up her season tickets to the 49er football team and to the San Francisco Ballet. She said to tell you that she went to the garden (olitory) and won’t be back. She left her heart in San Francisco – forever.

Jeanne Rose was a “down-to-earth” woman and a real Grande Dame.

She was born in 1937. Her mother was a French- Canadian woman and her father, a Puerto Rican born farmer of apricots. They met via correspondence, her mom traveled via transcontinental bus to California, and 9 months later, Jeanne was born in Oakley, CA. She went to school in Antioch, CA and graduated from Antioch High School in 1954 and from San Jose State University with a degree in Zoology in 1960. Jeanne attended graduate school on a full scholarship at the Marine Institute in Key Biscayne, FL. She escaped Florida, came home California, look LSD in 1964 (it was legal), saw the light, ate organic thereafter, and was known as “Jeanne the Tailor” in San Francisco during the late ‘60s making couturier clothing for the Rock and Roll stars of that era.

In 1969, she was discovered by the Village Voice and touted as an herbalist. In 1973, she was ousted as an herbalist from the Herb Society of America. Her writings restarted the quest for down to earth herbal knowledge with the publication of “Herbs and Things” in 1969. She authored over 20 wonderful books and hundreds and articles and papers on herbal medicine and aromatherapy reaching hundreds of thousands of people. Well respected and even feared as s Seminar leader she did not suffer fools lightly. For many years, she traveled North America, teaching her love of herbs, natural scents and natural medicine and inspiring hundreds of students to study and take seriously the powers of nature’s plant kingdom. When in 1985, she developed a serious respiratory condition, she continued to travel strapped to an oxygen tank to continue her work. She was called an ‘academic enthusiast’ by her friends and ‘the renegade herbalist’ by her peers.

Her favorite herbs were Rosemary, Seaweed and whatever else happened to occupy her attention on any one day. You can visit her Herbal Library which she donated, at the Lloyd Library in Cincinnati, OH. She donated her pop-up book library to the Martin Luther King Library at San Jose State University.

She was known for helping women realize their full potential, helping them focus on what they wanted to achieve and educated themselves in what they were trying to accomplish. Jeanne believed in the power of knowledge through disciplined reading, was always saying, “The answers are right there if only people would read!” Jeanne worked tirelessly to teach others about the power of essential oils, hydrosols, herbs, and good-sense natural medicine.

Her best class Seminars were always held right in her home, “The Home of 10,000 Aromatic Mysteries.” Jeanne lived and breathed in what she believed – it wasn’t just something she talked about when teaching a class or writing a book. As soon as one would walk into her home it was evident that she did so because the entire house had become saturated with years of scentual living.

Jeanne often celebrated the holiday season with the grandest affairs. For years, she bought 12 bottles of champagne and 12 jars of caviar to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas. Through Jeanne, others learned how to appreciate the sacredness of living, the ceremony of life, old books, fine food, red wine, and of course the “proper” way to drink a good Boodles Martini!

Somewhere – she is surrounded by her favorite California Poppies, reading stacks of her favorite Pop-Up books, and enjoying a good Martini and watching the sun rise over the San Francisco skyline.

Visit her at the San Francisco Columbarium – 3rd Floor, Section C, Tier 5, Niche #4.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to the following in her name...

California Academy of Sciences: calacademy.org & San Francisco Ballet: sfballet.org