Rosalie Walsh - Obituary

n Sunday, April 7, 2013; the beloved wife of the late William F. Walsh; mother of William F., Jr., Charles and Trudy Walsh and Rosemary Bordley; sister of Sr. Lucille, OSB and Jack Borengasser; grandmother of Eileen Bordley. She is also survived by 14 nieces and six nephews. Relatives and friends are invited to Rosalie's Life Celebration on Thursday, April 11 from 2-4 and 6-8pm at the GEORGE P. KALAS FUNERAL HOME, 6160 Oxon Hill Rd., Oxon Hill, MD. Mass of Christian Burial will be offered on Friday April 12 at 11am at St. Ignatius Catholic Church, 2401 Brinkley Rd., Ft. Washington, MD. Interment Resurrection Cemetery. Please share your thoughts and memories by signing the guestbook located above. Mrs. Walsh was born Rosalie Elizabeth Borengasser in Fort Smith, Arkansas, where she was valedictorian of her high school class. She moved to Washington, D.C., in 1941 to work for the Veterans Administration as a "government girl," one of the young women who flocked to Washington by the thousands to work in administrative jobs during World War II. She also volunteered for the USO during the war and worked as a secretary at the Pentagon after the war. Mrs. Walsh attended off-campus classes at George Washington University in the 1960s and worked at the Naval Research Laboratory in the 1970s as a secretary and editor. A voracious reader, she had a lifelong love of learning and ideas. A few years before her death, she talked about starting a blog on the Internet. Mrs. Walsh was a member of St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Fort Washington, Md. She also loved to garden and was a marvelous cook. Her husband of 46 years, William F. Walsh, was an economist at the International Monetary Fund. He died in 1996. Two sons died very young. Edward Walsh died in infancy in 1954, and James Michael Walsh died before his fourth birthday in 1961. Survivors include a sister, Lucille Borengasser of Atchison, Kansas; a brother, Jack Borengasser of Fort Smith, Ark.; four children, Frankie Walsh of Glenn Dale, Md.; Charles Walsh of Oxon Hill, Md.; Rosemary Bordley of Alexandria, Va.; Trudy Walsh of Bethesda, Md.; and one granddaughter.