Beloved matriarch of the large McManus family, Rosella Hedwig Hirsch McManus died just short of her 97th birthday on Tuesday, May 9, 2017. In 1997, she and her late husband, Dr. Terence McManus, moved to Port Washington from Spicer, Minnesota, to be near the families of their son, Douglas and daughter, Kassie. Rosella was born on June 2, 1920, in the little northern Minnesota town of Fosston, to Esther (Hendrickson) and Fridolph C. Hirsch. Her father was a photographer and a musician. Her mother was artistic and tinted the photographs for her father's studio. She had three brothers, Fridolph (Fritz), Alf and Stanley. When she was a junior in high school, her father died and she moved to Duluth, MN with her mother and one of her brothers. She graduated in 1938 from Duluth Central High School and enrolled in Duluth Junior College. When her mother moved back to Fosston, she stayed with a family in Duluth and worked for room and board. When that family moved to St. Paul, she moved with them and enrolled in the nursing program at the University of Minnesota. She was grateful to her older brother Fritz who helped her pay her tuition. Pearl Harbor was bombed right after Rosella started clinical training. Soon the University was mobilizing medical units to help in the war effort. Doctors and charge nurses started leaving to go overseas. In only their second year of training, the young student nurses were often the ones in charge of hospital wards or "stations," as they were called. Rosella remembered that "we worked hard and learned fast." Rosella earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing Education in 1943. When she graduated, the University of Minnesota had created a Cadet Nursing program. Rosella said that those graduates with a nursing education degree were asked to stay on at the university "to make nurses out of the odds and ends of people who wanted to help with the war effort." Rosella was very proud of her nursing expertise and her education. Over the years she had many types of nursing assignments but her favorite job was Chief Nurse for the Children's Psychiatric Unit at the Mental Health Institute in Cherokee, Iowa. Rosella enlisted with the Army Nurse Corps in early 1945. The war started winding down and she received an honorable discharge in the spring of 1945. She married Terence McManus, a Navy pilot, in their hometown of Fosston on June 28, 1945; while Terry was on leave. After the war, Terence went to medical school at the University of Minnesota on the GI Bill and the family eventually moved to Wessington Springs, South Dakota. They had six children. Terence's career took the family to Wessington Springs and Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Cherokee and Spencer, Iowa; and to Spicer and Willmar, Minnesota. Rosella was the one-woman family support team. She established a household, made friends, raised the children, and volunteered for school and community projects. She served as president of the Women's Auxiliary to the South Dakota State Medical Assn., was a 60 year member of P.E.O., an active member of the League of Women Voters and active in her church communities. She loved to collect things but she loved collecting friends even more. Everywhere the McManus family moved, Rosella found people she loved who also loved her. Each time the household was uprooted Rosella maintained ties with those friends she had to leave behind. Rosella was the person who started conversations with strangers. She found common ground and engaged with others. Family, friends and strangers of all sorts always found a sympathetic ear, something sweet and a cup of coffee at her table. She was a voracious reader and she loved reading to her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She was a grandmother who helped, listened and delighted in the exploits of her "grands" and had an inexhaustible trove of love for them. Rosella is survived by her six children: Terry of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Robert (Lee Anderson) of Calgary, Alberta; Douglas (Vicky) and Kassie of Port Washington, Wisconsin; Michael (Nyla Knigge) of Sturgis, South Dakota; and Patrick (Mary Beth Johnson) of Omaha, Nebraska; her brother Stanley and sister-in-law, Helen Hirsch; 17 grandchildren and more than 20 great grandchildren. She is also survived by beloved nieces and nephews and a legion of cherished friends. Rosella was preceded in death by her husband, her parents, brothers Fritz and Alf, her sisters-in-law Barbara Hirsch, Mary Jane McManus Yonda and Alice McManus, her brothers-in-law, Edward McManus and Fred Yonda, and many dear friends. In lieu of flowers, the family has suggested memorials to First Congregational Church (131 N. Webster, Port Washington, WI 53074) or Doctors Without Borders (P.O. Box 5030, Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030).