2008
Helen Rinewalt Rouse, 102, who volunteered at the Florence Crittenton Home and was a member of the Columbia Country
Club for 50 years, died May 27 at Manor Care in Chevy Chase. She was a former Washington resident.
Mrs. Rouse taught ceramics to the girls at the home for 10 years. An artist by training, she enjoyed painting oils and watercolors.
She was a "domestic goddess," said her daughter, LaVerne Fleming. "She was a fabulous cook and meticulous housekeeper."
Mrs. Rouse was born in her mother's home on 14th Street in Northwest and graduated from the old Central High School. She
attended what is now the Corcoran College of Art and Design.
She learned to drive in her 20s and continued driving into her 90s. She never had a ticket or a fender bender. "That's an
accomplishment," her daughter said.
Mrs. Rouse traveled to Europe and to the Orient. She visited her niece in Phoenix, and her niece and her husband, Joan and
David Alexander, would come to Washington and go with her to the Columbia County Club in Chevy Chase.
Her marriage to John Fleming ended in divorce.
Her husband of 50 years, C. Gordon 'Pete' Rouse, died in 1997.
Survivors include Fleming, her daughter from her first marriage, of Washington.
-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb