Rose Mary Traynor Meyer of St. Louis, Missouri, a native of St.
Johnsbury, Vermont died Tuesday, March 14, 2017, at age 88.
Rose Mary spent her childhood enjoying the snowy winters
and cool summers of St. Johnsbury, where she was active in
Girl Scouts, Rainbow Girls and South Congregational Church.
She was an all-state honorable mention basketball player at
St. Johnsbury Academy, where she graduated in 1946.
At the University of Vermont she belonged to Alpha Chi
Omega sorority and Mortar Board National Honor Society and
was an officer in the Women’s Association. She graduated
from UVM in 1950 and worked as a teacher in Burlington for
three years before moving to St. Louis, where she worked
seven more years before ending her teaching career to raise her children.
While teaching in Burlington in 1952, she and her roommates
saw newspaper articles about concerns that local residents
were not being friendly to Air Force members stationed there.
The roommates and three other teachers decided to put out
an invitation for six airmen to come to dinner. It was at that
spaghetti dinner that she met Jim Meyer of St. Louis. They
were married on Aug. 8, 1953, at South Congregational
Church in St. Johnsbury. They moved to St. Louis, but
frequently visited St. Johnsbury, spending summers with her
parents, William Craig and Madge Stevens Traynor.
In St. Louis, Rose Mary had been an active member of Calvary
Presbyterian Church in St. Louis County since 1962, serving
as an elder and Women’s Association officer. She was a
member of P.E.O. Missouri Chapter FX and volunteered with
several organizations. Because of her mother’s severe hearing
loss she had a fondness for helping the hearing- impaired and
enjoyed working for CONTACT, making calls for the deaf and
hard of hearing. She enjoyed creating games, poems and
genealogy booklets for Traynor family reunions. She kept in
touch with many of her St. Johnsbury friends and classmates throughout her life.
Rose Mary is survived by her daughter, Kathy (Jim) Salter of
O’Fallon, Missouri; son Kendon C. Meyer of Wildwood,
Missouri; grandchildren Daniel (Ali) Salter of Columbia,
Missouri, Tyler Salter of Charlottesville, Virginia, and Emily
Salter of Springfield, Missouri; sister, Dorothy Desrochers of
St. Johnsbury; niece Susan Desrochers (Jim) McLaughlin of
Wallingford, Connecticut, and children Jill (Kris) Kaider and
their daughter Eleanor, and Ben McLaughlin; nephew James
(Karen) Desrochers, Sugarland, Texas, and their daughters
Laura Desrochers and Kristen Desrochers; cousin, Jean
(Robert) Gagner of Jeffersonville, Vermont; niece-in-law
Patricia Desrochers of Waterford, Vermont. She was preceded
in death by Jim Meyer, her husband of 61 years, on March 31, 2015;
her parents; in-laws Carl F. and Erna L. Meyer; cousin,
Ann Stratton Trujillo; and nephew, Thomas Craig Desrochers.
A memorial service will be at 1:30 p.m. March 25, Calvary
Presbyterian Church, St. Louis. Memorial gifts may be made
to the American Parkinson Disease Association; Calvary
Presbyterian Church, 3400 Lemay Ferry Road, St. Louis, MO, 63125;
or to the St. Johnsbury History and Heritage Center.
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