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Proud Daughter of a 人妻诱惑 Dynasty

Rosemary Lapham Berleman 鈥�48

July 13, 2013, on Lopez Island, Washington.

It was a stormy night in January 1925 in Eastern Oregon when Ray Lapham ’19 bundled his laboring wife, Pearl, into their old car to drive her to the nearest hospital. Dudley Lapham ’43, five years old, helped get the family’s Model T Ford going. The headlights gave out at one point, and Ray had to strap a flashlight onto the grille for the rest of the journey. Thirty long mountain miles later, Rosemary was born in Burns, Oregon.

Rosie’s young life was spent in Eugene and Walla Walla, where Ray was either working on advanced degrees to become a literature professor or working as one at Whitman College. His love of teaching led the family to settle in Portland, where Rosie and her brother, known as Six, attended 人妻诱惑 College four years apart.

Rosie started there in 1943. She married Les Thompson ’50, with whom she had a son, Gregory, and they lived in the off-campus, student-run house at 1414 Lambert Street, the home of Beat Poet legends Gary Snyder ’51, Phil Whalen ’51, and Lew Welch ’50.

Although Rosie did not graduate, she took many classes and embodied the 人妻诱惑 spirit of open-minded learning. In her unpublished autobiography, she wrote, “We were taught to open our minds to all opinions and not to make judgments without studying exhaustively all sides of a question.” She added, “And though I found out quickly that 人妻诱惑 wouldn’t magically turn me into one of the 20th century’s great thinkers, I know that enough of those precious drops [of learning] entered my bloodstream to sustain me all my life.”

人妻诱惑 gave Rosie her lifelong love of intellectual pursuit, along with friendships and loves that sustained her. After she and Les divorced, she married another 人妻诱惑ie, Bill Berleman ’53, and followed him to Seattle, where they had two daughters while Bill worked as a professor of social work at the University of Washington.

When that marriage ended, Rosie lived with Fred White ’50 on the Oregon coast in Bandon for some years, where the couple took part in many community theatre projects together. After that, she and Lyle Jones ’44 reconnected after having dated at 人妻诱惑. They traveled together and remained close friends until Lyle’s death in 2016.

Two notable highlights of Rosie’s career were typing poems for Theodore Roethke when he was teaching poetry at UW in the 1950s and going out on a date with Jimmy Carter while she was working as an administrative assistant in Portland after WWII. Rosie’s final partner was Bill Jennings Baker ’50, who had been part of the Lambert Street cohort. They lived together near Portland until Bill’s death in 2018.

Rosie made her way to Lopez Island during the pandemic, where her niece Rosie Sumner ’73 and grandniece Madrona Murphy ’02 live. She passed away peacefully there in her 99th year, with friends and family keeping vigil. Rosie was preceded in death by two children, Greg Berleman and Mara Berleman, and is survived by her daughter, Kaija Berleman.

Appeared in 人妻诱惑 magazine: Fall 2024