January 25, 1946-January 19, 2025
Rose Widegren was born in the doctor’s office in Hotchkiss, Colorado, on Jan. 25, 1946.
She was the third of five children born to her mother, Agnes Egger Welch, and her father, Augustine Guercio Welch, who worked in the mines in the North Fork Valley while the family lived in Somerset, in a tiny house on the bank of the North Fork of the Gunnison River.
The family moved to Fruita after August’s death in 1960, to live with Rose’s grandfather, Joseph Egger.
There, Rose graduated from Fruita High School in 1964 and went on to study music at Western State College in Gunnison. She married Rex Odell Widegren in 1967. They were high school sweethearts – she was the head cheerleader and he was the quarterback of the football team. Their first date was her junior prom, and she took him because he was only a sophomore.
They welcomed their first son, Todd, shortly after they married, when the couple was living in Greeley.
Later on, their next son, Craig, was born in Leadville.
They were the only two of the nine Widegren children born in the hospital – Rose decided she could do just as well at home with Rex acting as midwife after that.
Jason, Camille, Michelle, Anthony, Benjamin, Mark and Jesse followed, as the couple moved to Oregon, back to Colorado and eventually to the South after they owned a health food store in downtown Grand Junction called The Good Earth.
The Widegrens moved to Mountain View, Arkansas, in a converted bread truck, with ducks, a goat, chickens, four kids and beehives to live off the land. They stayed until 1984, when they returned to live in Palisade. She worked at a health food store again – this time at the Horn O’ Plenty – helping customers with therapeutic home remedies.
For the past four decades, Rose was a fixture in the rich fabric of the Palisade community and volunteered for everything from starting a youth soccer league in Palisade to advocating for a new high school to be built.
She volunteered to help with the St. Ann’s Catholic Church directory and helped organize the church yard sale every year. Some may remember her as the “chicken lady,” who championed a new town ordinance allowing backyard poultry keeping in Palisade.
Those who drove past the family home could see she kept a flock of chickens, and she would wave at passersby while she was outside tending her garden and animals. When you were lucky, she would visit with you and give you a taste of a fresh fig she grew herself.
Rose had a soft spot for stray animals and humans.
She adopted many over the years to call her own, and opened her heart to them. Her kitchen table was a welcome spot for visitors, who she greeted with an offer of tea and snacks, usually her homemade coconut- date rolls or dried peach roll-ups. She could feed a small army with a lasagna.
Her favorite place to be was at home, surrounded by her family. She was able to enjoy that before she died at the Hope West Ferris Hospice Care Center in Grand Junction, after being diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer in December.
She joins her husband, Rex, and her son, Mark, in heaven, as well as her parents and sisters Theresa Mc-Donald and Anita McIntyre, who died before her.
Survivors include her brother, John (Carolyn) Welch of Montrose; her sister, Jo Adair Brown of Grand Junction; her children, Todd (Michelle Foote), Camille (Andy) Nack, Michelle, and Anthony (Nicole Magill) of Grand Junction, Craig (Sara) of Montrose, Jason (Michelle Beutz) of Littleton, and Ben (Amanda Davis) and Jesse of Palisade. She also leaves behind grandchildren Hannah (Tom) Murray, Kris Widegren, Kaleb Widegren, Claire Widegren, Grace Widegren, Anna Widegren, Brittni (Ryan) Koke Nack, Mitchell (Billie) Nack, Xander Dranginis, Sebastian Widegren, Odin Widegren and Ada Abers; and two great-grandchildren, Laura and Eleanor Rose Nack.
Services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 25 at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Palisade.
