Rose Marie Falco died surrounded by friends and family at the age of 98, on October 19, 2025 — a date easily confirmed on one of the 24 calendars she dutifully maintained at the warm and loving home she kept in Pickering Place in Belton.

On January 10, 1927, Rose Marie (known as "Rosie", Mom, Nanne, Nane, G.G., Granny, Granny Rose, and sometimes Grandma) was born on her family's kitchen table in Kansas City's Little Italy neighborhood, just as the 6 p.m. church bells sang out. The first of six children born to Charles Vincent and Caroline Carrollo, her mother was adamant that the timing of those bells was a sign of the special life Rosie would live.

What a sign indeed.

She lived her life in wonderment at daily miracles most never bothered to notice — whether it was a convoluted movie plot or a surprise skill she hadn't known Siri possessed. Her desire to learn was first sparked as a grade schooler when she was gifted a dictionary the size and weight of a car battery. In her 98 years — though she would have stressed 98 and three-quarters — no other book impressed her more: "it contains all the books that ever existed, after all." She did thousands of puzzles and word games to keep her mind sharp. Few minds stayed sharper for longer.

Her encyclopedic knowledge of her family's history extended to Palermo, Sicily and on into the lives they built in Kansas City from the early 1900s onward. Her family was her world and her house was a treasure trove of artifacts. Any item would launch her into a long-lasting story colored with her electric words and out-of-this-world memory. She elaborately decorated her house for every season, then carefully packed the contents into well-marked boxes (except for the Christmas tree, which stayed up year-round and transformed with the seasons). She took great care in staying organized, from well-labeled cottage cheese containers that held binder clips to the book that documented all of her major purchases, from refrigerators to cars. What made her most sentimental was the jar that held quarters she found scattered all over the world. She saw each quarter as a sign that her first and last love, Joseph Francis Falco, Sr., was still with her three decades after his death.

Joe was the too-nice-seeming boy who courted Rosie through letters they exchanged while he served in World War II — a courtship that made the world of dating apps and social media relatable to Rosie. During the war, she worked in the Quartermaster Corps provisioning equipment on forms so extensive they confounded her for the many decades that followed. She was among the first graduates of Avila (Saint Theresa's at the time) and she earned a Master's of Social Work at UMKC. She was a long-time, extremely active member of Coronation Church in Grandview and Saint Sabina's in Belton.

Even as the losses mounted in a life that stretched beyond her wildest dreams— grandparents, her father, her mother, aunts and uncles, sisters and children-in-law, and more Royals games than she could bear — she never lost faith in God, her family, her friends, or the Royals. Her patience, after all, was forged in the classroom, where for 35 years she taught first grade, jumping at a job posting for teachers while uncertain what to do with her social work degree. Her teaching career began in a red, four-room schoolhouse in Hickman Mills in 1956 and ended at bustling Symington Elementary in 1991.

She never truly retired from teaching, dedicating all her free time to nannying and babysitting her 19 great-grandchildren in the many decades that followed (and she never charged a dime). It ensured that generations of her family inherited her quick humor, self-effacing wit, and A-type organizational wizardry and planning sensibility. The time she spent with her family helped her adapt to technology and to the changing sensibilities of generations — often jokingly catching her breath and clutching her chest at bluer humor, even as no four-letter words ever entered her mind or crossed her lips.

Up to the end she stayed involved in her church's choir, kept playing poker every Thursday and dominos on Wednesdays, kept spending hours upon hours with her family, kept doing a half dozen puzzles a week (unless one of her grandchildren tortured her with a 1,000-piece head scratcher), and kept drawing laughs and gasps at the extent and grace of her presence and memory.

She offered no secrets to her longevity. She subsisted on Coca Colas (and Pepsi when fate was unkind), avoided exercise (though she joined a gym at 90), detested water ("bleh"), and cared little for music ("why would I want to feel like I'm in a movie"). In the end, her best guess was she was powered by her family and the Lord's blessings.

At about this point in the obituary, Rose Marie would start to worry whether we were charged by word. She hated waste, having scrimped and saved and made it through her life without the aid of a credit card. But she would have been equally mortified if the people she loved so deeply weren't included — those lucky recipients of the scheduled 26 calls she made each month, the 250+ cards she sent each year (51 hand-cramp-inducing cards on Christmas alone). She was preceded in death by her husband Joe; by her parents; by her sisters Katherine Carrollo, Antoinette Cipolla, and Anna Marie Arnone; and by her sons-in-law Herb Zaccagnini and Michael Stewart. She is survived by her siblings Kathy Gates, Carolina Adams, and Anthony Carrollo; her three children: Mary Jo Zaccagnini (and Paul Biolchini); Joseph Francis Jr. (and his wife Kathy); and Carol Stewart. She is also survived by three great-great-grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren, and 12 grandchildren: Michael Zaccagnini, Rozanna Ayres (and husband Alan), Joe Falco III (and partner Phoebe Stubbs), Patty Novacek (and husband Joe), Julie Ball (and husband Kevin), Michael Falco-Felderman (and husband Max), Ryan Falco (and wife Adriane), Kathleen Hennen (and husband Matt). She also had two bonus granddaughters, Amy Stewart Gurss and Abby Powell, plus so many friends and neighbors she loved dearly. And yes, she had many proud thoughts about being surrounded by so many Joes.

She wanted to be remembered as somebody who tried her very best, while not wanting people to make too big of a fuss over her. But she was the gravitational force that held generations together with the vigor of her spirit and the abundance of her presence.

Join us on Tuesday, October 28, at St. Sabina Catholic Church in Belton, MO, to celebrate her life and see why we are making such a fuss. Visitation will begin at 9:00 a.m. with the Funeral Mass at 11:00 a.m. A lunch reception will follow. Interment will be private. In lieu of flowers — "what a waste" — donations are suggested to St. Sabina Parish or Kansas City Hospice.

Condolences may be offered at www.passantinobros.com