Joan Loretta Rosebrook

Joan Loretta Fischer, age 89, of Hamilton, passed away at Westover Retirement Community on Friday, January 3, 2025. Born on September 15, 1935, in Hamilton, Ohio, Joan was the daughter of Joseph and Loretta Fischer. A graduate of Notre Dame High School, she briefly attended nursing school but decided it was not for her after the day she was to give a sponge bath to a man.

Joan loved to travel, with one of her first big adventures visiting Oahu, Hawaii before it became a state in 1959. She moved to Texas seeking independence and adventure in 1963, temping and then working at Fish Inc. in Houston, where she typed random letters, made appointments, filed her nails, and completed crossword puzzles as a secretary for her future husband, John C. Rosebrook. They married in January 1966 in Mexico. Her only child, Jaclyn Rosebrook, was born in September 1966 in Sarasota, Florida. During her years in Florida, Joan enjoyed napping, relaxing by the pool, going to the beach, shelling on the sandbars with her toddler strapped to her back, creating elaborate shell compositions and crafts, and filming Super 8 movies of their life together. She made numerous crossings of the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston, Texas with her husband and infant daughter on their sailboat and also had a house in Houston.

In 1971, Joan and her daughter returned to her childhood home on Clinton Avenue in Hamilton, where she cared for her parents until their passing. She worked as a secretary/administrator for Fluid Kinetics and Western States Machine Company for most of her career but hated typing and was an atrocious speller. She loved her hometown of Hamilton and observed and participated in its renaissance as a supporter of HUGS Hamilton Urban Gardening Initiative and Pyramid Hill Park.  She led an active social life, had many dear friends and regularly participated in various social groups like Red Hats and other spiritual groups seeking answers to the meaning of life.  She was always ready for a road trip taking several legendary ones to Florida, one in 1973 with Marcie, her goddaughter, and her friends.  Another in 1983 with Jaclyn and Pat Lake-Flinchpaugh and her daughter Kim. Joan enjoyed camping and sailing at Hueston Woods, boating, and water skiing at Hamilton Boat Club with the Riegers and family.  Before dementia robbed her of her ability to socialize, she enjoyed many activities at Westover Retirement Community where she moved in 2017 and made many new friends there.

Devoted to her daughter—perhaps more accurately, obsessed—Joan made numerous trips to Grenoble, France, after Jaclyn emigrated there in 1993. She traveled throughout France and Europe with several close friends, Jaclyn’s French host mother Michelle Fernandez, and her twin sister, Florence. After the birth of her cherished granddaughter, Joséphine, in 2008, Joan would often visit France for up to 6 weeks at a time. Despite the complexities of their mother/daughter relationship—regularly punctuated by conflict and plenty of swearing—it was never devoid of love and the weekly Sunday phone call or video call.

Joan was known as a character—feisty, stubborn, independent but deeply caring, loving, and always fighting for the underdog. She had an uncanny ability to be simultaneously infuriating and endearing, a keen propensity for challenging others, and an adventurous spirit. Joan was always outspoken—sometimes to a fault. A unique historian who documented the simple things in life, whether it be shells from the beaches of Sarasota or rocks picked up on her many journeys, she placed her mark and told a story. She maintained long-term relationships with friends from Hamilton, Texas, Florida, and her various workplaces and travels. Joan was also beloved by her daughter’s friends, often making them scrambled eggs and hot dogs after sleepovers, provoking fits of laughter with her unfiltered remarks and lack of boundaries. As a single mother raising an equally feisty daughter, she led a rich and interesting life on her own terms and with her own means.

Joan is survived by her daughter Jaclyn Rosebrook and her beloved granddaughter Josephine Rosebrook-Collignon, many nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews, and a few good friends.  She was particularly cared for in her later years by her twin sister’s children: Mickie Brown, Marcie Fitzwater, Melanie Roesch, Marianne Magee, Monica Plotka, Joe Hetterich, Maria Jeffers, and Matthew Hetterich; She was preceded in death by her parents; brother, Jack Fischer and sister, Mary Feldman, twin sister Florence Hetterich and many of her close friends.

Jaclyn and her cousins would like to thank to the staff and caregivers at Westover Retirement Community for all the wonderful care she has received over the years, especially those who she adored and who loved her as well, they are too many to mention; as well as the amazing people from Queen City Hospice who accompanied and facilitated Joan’s last great adventure.

No memorial service will be held in the immediate future as her daughter is unable to travel for health reasons.  However, if you’d like to honor Joan, Jaclyn and her nieces would like you to share a funny or interesting anecdote or a memory you have of her, either on the Brown Dawson Flick legacy page or on Facebook below her obituary. Or you may donate in her name to any worthy organization that you think Joan would support.