Rosemary (Anny) Ballas Jambois

Rosemary (Anny) Ballas Jambois, 95, passed away April 11, 2015, in Fountain Valley, Calif., with her four sons by her side.
Rosemary was born Sept. 24, 1919, in Genoa, to Leo and Josephine (Gilardi) Anny. She graduated from Aquinas High School in La Crosse in 1936, then attended vocational school before moving to Savanna, Ill. There she met the love of her life, James J. Ballas. They married in 1940 and raised their five children in Savanna while running the family business, Ballas Tavern and Pizza. After her husband passed away in 1964, Rosemary continued to operate the business while providing college educations for their sons, and caring for their beloved special needs daughter, Mary Beth.
In 1969, Rosemary moved to La Crosse and married Harold Jambois, a friend from Genoa and high school. They lived in La Crescent, Minn., where she devoted her time to helping him raise his 10 children.
For the past six years, Rosemary has resided at Eagle Crest Assisted Living in Onalaska. She moved to California in December 2014 to be closer to her sons and their families.
She is survived by her sons, John (Paulette) Ballas of Yorba Linda, Calif., James (Carol) Ballas of La Crosse, Jeff Ballas of Seal Beach, Calif., and Joseph (Gail) Ballas of Turlock, Calif. She is also survived by eight grandchildren, Lisa and Beth-Anne, Joseph and Alexandra, and James Jr., Christopher, Kirsten, and Nicholas Ballas. She was great-grandmother to Lucas, Andrew, Matthew and James III.
Rosemary was preceded in death by her parents; brothers; husband; daughter, Mary Beth; and granddaughter, Bridgette. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held April 18 at St. Martin’s Catholic Church in Yorba Linda, Calif. A Prayer Service and burial will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 25 at St. John’s Cemetery in Savanna, Ill. In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred to Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church in Savanna, Ill.
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A SHORT STORY OF ROSEMARY’S LIFE
Rosemary was born in the fall of the year 1919. A time of year when her small hometown of Genoa(Jen-O-a), Wisconsin, nestled against the hills arising along the banks of the Mississippi River, is bathed in the stunning colors of an autumn day in the Midwest. Genoa (Jen-O-a), named by the approximately 300 Italians that founded the city, was named so because for these Italians, Genoa (JEN-o-a), a port city in Italy, provided the last glimpse of their mother country when their ship sailed for America.
Rosemary’s mother was, Josephine Gilardi, who came from Italy with her parents to this little namesake town of Genoa, Wisconsin. Josephine Gilardi was one of 16 children, yes, 16. The family was made of 3 sets of twins (her being from one of the sets), along with 3 profoundly deaf girls. The 16 children and their parents lived in Genoa, Wisconsin amid a very simple life, raising their own food in a subsistence living environment. They were humble God-fearing people that supported each other and the other Italians living in Genoa.
When Josephine was a teenager her family arranged a marriage for her with a fine Italian man from Sicily, named Leo Anny. Leo’s Italian name was Leonardo Anania. They had three children, two boys and Rosemary.
The boy’s names were Salvatore (Salvie) and John. These brothers were hell-raisers when they were young, they were tough kids who weren’t afraid of anyone or anything. Often they would scare their sister by bringing down snakes that they found in the hills around Genoa. For this reason, throughout her entire life, Rosemary was deathly afraid of snakes, if she ever saw one alive, or on TV, or in a magazine, she would shriek with terror and be on the verge of a heart attack.
Her rough and tumble brothers were called to fight for their country in World War II and served in the Pacific. Their toughness served them well, they both became members of “The Fighting SeaBees”, the construction battalion unit of the navy that built buildings, bridges and runways for American bases in the Pacific. Salvie spent two years on Okinawa and was in harm’s way for much of the time. John worked a very dangerous job doing underwater welding . The early days for Rosemary and her family and all the other Italian immigrants were tough in many ways. She had to survive the prejudices that sons and daughters of Italian immigrants suffered, she survived the Great Depression of the 1920’s and early 1930’s, as well as the tough times during WWII when food and clothing were scarce. She learned from her parents how to work hard and to survive during the hard times. She grew up in an era when there was no refrigeration, no indoor plumbing and no money to buy new dresses and new shoes. Her Mother taught her how to can and store fruits and vegetables that were raised in their backyard garden. Canning jars of all the food grown at home, including an abundance of tomatoes were kept for the year, packed around icy cold water of the spring that ran underneath their house.
Rosemary was a bit of an enigma. She had equal parts of her parents running through her persona. She possessed the gentleness and cute, soft little smile of her Mother, Josephine, who according to her sons, John, Jim, Jeff and Joe was the sweetest, kindness, meekest woman that God ever put on the earth. On the other hand, Rosemary had the feisty-ness of her Dad, Leo, who was build like a fireplug, and could lick anyone twice his size. He was a man’s man with a fiercely protective nature who would guard his family like a protecting lion.
As a teenager, Rosemary had to become somewhat independent and had to move to LaCrosse, Wisconsin in order to attend high school. While going to school, she lived in a boardinghouse and had to do household chores for the matronly owner in order to earn her keep. She graduated from Aquinas High School, (incidentally it is the same school that four of her grandchildren, Jimmy, Christopher, Kirsten and Nicholas attended) and then went on to take secretarial training at a vocational school. Finding a job was very difficult in those days because the country had yet to completely recover from Great Depression. One day a friend suggested that she go down the river to a small town in Illinois called Savanna, where there was some work to be found. Rosemary, a courageous young girl not even 20 years old, moved by herself to Savanna. Soon after she found work in a small café, her life changed forever, because one day a tall, dark and handsome man wearing a white shirt and a tavern apron walked into the café. It was that magical moment when she met her husband to be, Jim Ballas. Jim had stopped by on a break from running his parent’s tavern down the street and made some chit-chat with her. Rosemary was kind of caught off guard by this stranger, it seemed he found some excuse to come in everyday to flirt with her.
After a rather quick courtship, the two were engaged. Rosemary and Jim Ballas were married in 1940 and had a rather unconventional honeymoon. Money was tight and America was on the verge of entering WWII, so they went up to central Wisconsin and stayed with Jim’s Uncle Louie and his wife, Anna, in their small farmhouse. A simple bed sheet was hung from the ceiling alongside their bed in the one-room farmhouse to provide the honeymoon couple with some privacy. Not quite the Ritz-Carlton, nonetheless, they made do and were happy.
When America entered the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, her husband Jim had to join the army. He was stationed in various bases in the U.S. for a few years and Rosemary was able to visit him often. Apparently, one of her visits proved fruitful because just before he shipped out to Europe, she was with child. Of course, Jim didn’t want to leave her, especially with a baby on the way, but had no choice. The two were deeply in love and he was going to miss her terribly.
Soon after he left, single page letters, written on thin, airmail type, blue paper started to arrive. They were titled “My dearest wife Rosemary”. Letters came virtually every day. His words expressed his love for his wife and how he missed her and looked forward to the birth of the baby. Rosemary saved each and every letter from her loving husband. What is so amazing to all of us is that her husband wrote almost every day during the 500 days that he was gone, and Rosemary kept all 500 of his letters to prove it!
A few months before her first baby was to be born, Rosemary went up to LaCrosse, Wisconsin to stay with her parents and to get help when the baby came. She gave birth to her first son, Johnny, and stayed there for almost a year before the boy’s father returned from the service to see his little boy for the first time.
After the war was over, Rosemary and Jim started their life in Savanna. Jim took over “Ballas Tavern” from his parents and Rosemary worked as both a homemaker and at her husband’s side in the tavern. Nine months after Jim returned, the baby-boomer, Jimmy, was born. Followed by Jeff and Joe, Rosemary now had four beautiful sons to raise. She still helped at the tavern, especially when they introduced the famous Ballas Pizza. Things went quite well in those early days of their family; the boys were healthy and growing strong. However, Rosemary always dreamed of having a daughter. She became pregnant for the fifth time at the age of 40. In July of 1960, she gave birth to that daughter she wanted. However, her little daughter was not just a normal little daughter, but one who was special. Her little Mary Beth was born with Down’s Syndrome, a child with special needs. Rosemary was steadfast in her desire to bring her little girl home and raise her with her four sons even though others had advised her that it would be too difficult. She had to learn on her own how to cope with Mary Beth’s special needs.
She not only handled Mary Beth with loving care and true tenderness, but she taught her boys how to accept their sister and how to care for her with the same regard as she had. Anyone who witnessed Rosemary’s dealing with Mary Beth observed the true meaning of love, humility, perseverance and the strength derived from an undeniable faith in God. To this very day, these virtues that were orchestrated by her are held as core principles in the lives of her sons, John, Jim, Jeff and Joe.
The challenges associated with raising Mary Beth proved to be just the first of many that Rosemary dealt with during her life. One day, she saw a slight change in Jim’s behavior. He began to display signs of confusion and wasn’t acting as the normal and vibrant as she knew him to be. When Mary Beth was about 3 years old, Jim was diagnosed with a severe brain tumor. He was operated on in October of 1963. Rosemary’s beloved husband, Jim, only 48 years old, died in February of the following year. This shocking loss left her with four sons, a special needs child and a family business to run. She handled all these challenges with amazing strength and grace. Rosemary was born of strong fiber, and it was never more apparent than at this time in her life. Through the early years after Jim’s death she tried to keep life at home as normal as possible. She ran the tavern and pizza business every night, often not getting home until 2 o’clock in the morning, often sneaking home with a bundle of cash to keep until the bank opened in the morning. She encouraged her boys to pursue their college educations just as she and Jim had planned they do. Rosemary maintained all of this with the duplicity of being strong, yet gentle. The cute smile, her gentle softness and caring for others that she inherited from her dear Mother never wavered throughout all the hardships and challenges that she faced.
About four years after Jim’s death, and once she knew her boys were going to stay in college, she sold the tavern and pizza business and tried to settle in as a single woman. As her parents were growing older, she wanted to be nearer them. So, around 1968 she moved back to Wisconsin where she encountered another monumental change in her life. She read in the local newspaper that a friend and classmate from Genoa had died. At her friend’s funeral she met the surviving husband, Harold Jambois, who happened to be another of her childhood and high school friends. With him, standing in the reception line, were his ten children who had just lost their Mother. With their childhood days and their family backgrounds in common (Harold was part Italian whose family was one of the early founders of Genoa) and their loss of a spouse at an early age, Rosemary and Harold were drawn to each other. And, as they say, the rest is history.
She married Harold and helped raise many of his ten children along with Mary Beth and Joe who was still in high school at the time. The union of the two families poses additional challenges for her, challenges that she met with the same strength and grace that served her previously. Just the mere size of the families was staggering, especially during holidays. Fifteen kids, sometimes with spouses and grandchildren, made for memorable gatherings. Rosemary cooked all the meals at home for her large new family. She often prepared her famous spaghetti dinners and legendary pork roast (with just the right amount of garlic). She often said that during Sunday Mass she couldn’t stop thinking; was there enough bacon for brunch, what about the juice and milk, who would help in the kitchen, and, did she have enough energy just to SURVIVE. Harold had built a beautiful home in a small town in Minnesota across the Mississippi River from Lacrosse, Wisconsin, called LaCrescent. It was there that Rosemary spent the next 38 years of her life. She lived those years dedicated to her husband, Harold, her new step-children, her sons who would visit whenever they could and to Mary Beth.
As the kids grew older, Rosemary and Harold were able to do some traveling and escape the frigid Wisconsin and Minnesota winters by spending time in warm climates. They spent nearly every winter in Palm Desert, California which afforded her a chance to be nearer her boys and their families who lived there.
When Rosemary was in her late 80’s, the big house in LaCrescent became too much to handle. She move to Lacrosse to an assisted living facility and shortly thereafter Harold passed way. Just a few short months ago the boys made a bold move. Because John, Jeff and Joe were now living in California and because Jim had a part-time residence there as well, they moved their Mother to an assisted living facility in Orange County, California. It was there where she spent her last days under the loving care of her boys.
Rosemary was a devote Catholic and a firm believer in the power of prayer. She went to bed every night saying goodnight to Jesus and Mary with a rosary wrapped around her hand. It would take more literary talent than anyone in her family possesses in order to sum up Rosemary’s life. A highlight list of her qualities would have to include the following:
her strength under adversity….her resolve in doing the right thing….her unparalleled ability to manage a home, run a business and merge two families….. her smile, the twinkle in her eye and the cuteness of her demeanor…..her love for her sons whom she dedicated her life to…..her genuine interest in each person she met.. …her old sage advice …… her love in equal measure for each of her grandchildren…..her Sicilian toughness….her Motherly gentleness and the softness of her touch….and, her deep faith in God and love for the Virgin Mother.May she rest in peace.