In Memoriam:
Rosalie Mollica, Perceivers president emerita
Rosalie Mollica, Afghanistan Perceivers president from 2019 to 2024, was born 20 June 1943 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and died 7 Nov. 2025 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is seen here in July 2019.
By Brian Wilson
Afghanistan Perceivers president
Her actions, in many ways, reminded one of Sherlock Holmes as she stepped in to save the day.
With her own modest, thorough, organized manner, Rosalie Mollica kept Oklahoma’s only scion society of the illustrious Baker Street Irregulars from dissolving into oblivion.
In 2019, the Afghanistan Perceivers verged on collapse with the death of group president Vic Lahti. This came not long after Richard Kearns, the decades-long driving force behind the Perceivers’ meetings and activities, left the group.
A leadership vacuum nearly consumed the 45-year-old society until Rosalie, at age 76, volunteered to take the reins. She agreed to hold the presidency for two years, which eventually turned into five. During that time, Rosalie, no Luddite, easily switched the Perceivers' monthly in-person meetings to Zoom sessions during the pandemic and the group continued with no gaps. She faithfully led the Perceivers into their 50th year and sanctioned funds to begin this website.
To celebrate her life and accomplishments, 14 Afghanistan Perceivers gathered on 15 Nov. at the White Lion pub in Tulsa and paid tribute to Rosalie, who died eight days earlier at age 82 after battling a debilitating lung disease for many years.
Dean Clark, Brandi Blankenship, Stephanie Colburn, Bill Janssens, Judith Sayre, Blaine Sayre, Brooks Williamson, Laura Duncombe, Laura Bottoms, Catherine Gatchell, Sherry Zyskowski, Sue Sinor, Brad Sinor and Brian Wilson remembered Rosalie as a gentle, wise, selfless, fearless woman who exhausted all that life presented and, like a good Sherlockian, always loved a good drink.
“She couldn’t help but to help people,” Ms. Duncombe said. “She always took an interest in my kids and wouldn’t let the conversation turn toward her.”
Ms. Bottoms extolled Rosalie’s “wit, kindness and sagacity,” while Ms. Colburn described how they had met each other a few decades earlier on a women-only canoe trek in the wild Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota.
“She didn’t know how to swim and, sure enough, she fell into the water, but, as she always did, Rosalie got back in the boat and didn’t quit,” Ms. Colburn said.
Anello Mollica, Rosalie’s beloved nephew, joined the White Lion group via Zoom. He resembles his dear auntie with his beaming face, ready laugh, understated humor and fondness for quality alcohol. After all, he runs Central Waters Brewing, with locations in Amherst and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“When I was little, I was a bit intimidated by Aunt Rosalie; she was a nun, you know,” he said. “But as I got older, we became closer. I think she saw my adventurous side and she was that way, too. I was the only one of my generation in the family to travel halfway around the world and back.
“That was our common denominator: adventure.”
Rosalie was a nun for decades and worked as a social worker for more than 40 years, during and after her time with the Roman Catholic Church. She had postings in Central and South America and was fluent in Spanish. She acquired properties for the church in Utah and began congregations.
“From what I understand, the Halloween parties that she would throw for the sisters were blow-out affairs, which isn’t surprising once you knew Rosalie,” Mr. Janssens said.
After retiring from social work, Rosalie worked part-time for the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa as a patient actor, or standardized patient, in the training of medical and psychology students.
She once said being a faux patient “requires a lot of skill because you have to convince yourself, and the students, that you really have the problems afflicting you. It’s like acting in a different play every day.”
Ms. Sayre, like several other Perceivers, visited Rosalie regularly during the final 18 months of her life. Rosalie always clearly stated that she was ready for and did not fear death.
“When I last sat with her, she said her life at that point was full of ‘wait’ and ‘weight,’” she said. “Rosalie knew she did not have long; she was ready for the heaviness to end. She leaves a legacy of love, friendship, and a bank of knowledge.”
Rosalie did not want a funeral, memorial service or wake, but she did not expressly ban a get-together with adult beverages: hence, the gathering at the White Lion.
A few asked why Rosalie didn’t want a funeral or something similar. Her choice reflected how she saw the world and the cosmos. And her decision reminds one of the last lines of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”:
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,
Missing me one place, search another.
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
As Mr. Janssens observed, “Rosalie gave her energy back to the universe.”
Afghanistan Perceivers president
Her actions, in many ways, reminded one of Sherlock Holmes as she stepped in to save the day.
With her own modest, thorough, organized manner, Rosalie Mollica kept Oklahoma’s only scion society of the illustrious Baker Street Irregulars from dissolving into oblivion.
In 2019, the Afghanistan Perceivers verged on collapse with the death of group president Vic Lahti. This came not long after Richard Kearns, the decades-long driving force behind the Perceivers’ meetings and activities, left the group.
A leadership vacuum nearly consumed the 45-year-old society until Rosalie, at age 76, volunteered to take the reins. She agreed to hold the presidency for two years, which eventually turned into five. During that time, Rosalie, no Luddite, easily switched the Perceivers' monthly in-person meetings to Zoom sessions during the pandemic and the group continued with no gaps. She faithfully led the Perceivers into their 50th year and sanctioned funds to begin this website.
To celebrate her life and accomplishments, 14 Afghanistan Perceivers gathered on 15 Nov. at the White Lion pub in Tulsa and paid tribute to Rosalie, who died eight days earlier at age 82 after battling a debilitating lung disease for many years.
Dean Clark, Brandi Blankenship, Stephanie Colburn, Bill Janssens, Judith Sayre, Blaine Sayre, Brooks Williamson, Laura Duncombe, Laura Bottoms, Catherine Gatchell, Sherry Zyskowski, Sue Sinor, Brad Sinor and Brian Wilson remembered Rosalie as a gentle, wise, selfless, fearless woman who exhausted all that life presented and, like a good Sherlockian, always loved a good drink.
“She couldn’t help but to help people,” Ms. Duncombe said. “She always took an interest in my kids and wouldn’t let the conversation turn toward her.”
Ms. Bottoms extolled Rosalie’s “wit, kindness and sagacity,” while Ms. Colburn described how they had met each other a few decades earlier on a women-only canoe trek in the wild Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota.
“She didn’t know how to swim and, sure enough, she fell into the water, but, as she always did, Rosalie got back in the boat and didn’t quit,” Ms. Colburn said.
Anello Mollica, Rosalie’s beloved nephew, joined the White Lion group via Zoom. He resembles his dear auntie with his beaming face, ready laugh, understated humor and fondness for quality alcohol. After all, he runs Central Waters Brewing, with locations in Amherst and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“When I was little, I was a bit intimidated by Aunt Rosalie; she was a nun, you know,” he said. “But as I got older, we became closer. I think she saw my adventurous side and she was that way, too. I was the only one of my generation in the family to travel halfway around the world and back.
“That was our common denominator: adventure.”
Rosalie was a nun for decades and worked as a social worker for more than 40 years, during and after her time with the Roman Catholic Church. She had postings in Central and South America and was fluent in Spanish. She acquired properties for the church in Utah and began congregations.
“From what I understand, the Halloween parties that she would throw for the sisters were blow-out affairs, which isn’t surprising once you knew Rosalie,” Mr. Janssens said.
After retiring from social work, Rosalie worked part-time for the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa as a patient actor, or standardized patient, in the training of medical and psychology students.
She once said being a faux patient “requires a lot of skill because you have to convince yourself, and the students, that you really have the problems afflicting you. It’s like acting in a different play every day.”
Ms. Sayre, like several other Perceivers, visited Rosalie regularly during the final 18 months of her life. Rosalie always clearly stated that she was ready for and did not fear death.
“When I last sat with her, she said her life at that point was full of ‘wait’ and ‘weight,’” she said. “Rosalie knew she did not have long; she was ready for the heaviness to end. She leaves a legacy of love, friendship, and a bank of knowledge.”
Rosalie did not want a funeral, memorial service or wake, but she did not expressly ban a get-together with adult beverages: hence, the gathering at the White Lion.
A few asked why Rosalie didn’t want a funeral or something similar. Her choice reflected how she saw the world and the cosmos. And her decision reminds one of the last lines of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”:
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,
Missing me one place, search another.
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
As Mr. Janssens observed, “Rosalie gave her energy back to the universe.”