Rose Anne Breckenridge

Rose Anne Breckenridge was born in Neosho Falls, Kansas on November 21, 1926. She grew up on the family farm in Piqua, Kansas during the Great Depression with her parents, Albert and Clara Kress, the eldest daughter in a family of seven brothers and sisters.

When she became old enough to attend high school, Rose Anne convinced her mother and father to allow her to leave the farm and live with her Uncle Ed and Aunt Anna (Rose Anne's namesake) in the nearby town of Yates Center, Kansas to attend high school there, from which she graduated.

After high school, she went to work at the Lassiter Hotel in Wichita, Kansas as a banquet room waitress where she met a young chef and husband-to-be, Jim Breckenridge. Rose Anne and Jim later moved to the Western Slope area of Colorado, eventually settling in Grand Junction. They had six children together and by the time the youngest came along, they had parted ways and later divorced.

As a single parent, Rose Anne took in ironings, worked at Kuner’s Canning Factory, and did alterations at Keith O’ Brian’s downtown clothing store in Grand Junction.

After all of her children had enrolled in St. Joseph’s Elementary School, she went to Business School, learned the basics of being a secretary, and got a state job with the Colorado Bureau of Mines at the old Petroleum Building in Grand Junction. Later, she moved to Denver to finish out the twenty years she needed for her retirement when the Grand Junction office was closed. After she retired, she researched mining records for a local Grand Junction attorney who advocated for compensation for the widows and families of miners who had died from Black Lung disease.

In Denver, she lived a number of years at the Westminster Commons and spent time with her family on the Eastern Slope before subsequently returning to Grand Junction. She was a devout and dedicated member of The Holy Trinity Catholic Church and participated in numerous church and school related activities, which kept her grounded in her religious beliefs.

Rose Anne was a loving mother, a beloved friend, a hard worker, and a decent and respected person with fundamental values and strong moral beliefs. Sincerity, above all, was the hallmark of her personality.

Survivors include five of her children, James, Robert, and Susan of Grand Junction, Patricia Swenson of Westminster, Colorado and Sharon Masten of Lakewood, Colorado, and 15 grandchildren and 28 great grandchildren.

Services were conducted by Deacon Doug Van Houten of St. Joseph's Church at the Callahan-Edfast Mortuary Chapel on September 14, 2019.