Rose Mary Nolan
*Rose Nolen was born on this date in 1935. She was a Black author and newspaper journalist.
Born in Windsor, MO. Her parents were Norman and Opal (Willis) Rhodes. She had four sisters, Norma Sowell, Ann Ferguson, June, and Jane Rhodes, and three brothers, Thomas, Gary, and Richard Rhodes. Rose Mary Nolan graduated from the CC Hubbard School, Sedalia in 1952. She started her journalism career in 1983 as a columnist and staff writer for the Pettis County Local Times-News in Sedalia.
In 1985, she founded her publishing company, Rosemark Communications, and wrote and published five books: Sedalia's Ragtime Man, the story of Scott Joplin's Sedalia years,
Lost on the Prairie: George R. Smith College for Negroes,
Time Out: For Working-Class Women,
Naming Sedalia, African Americans Mid-Missouri's from Pioneers to Ragtimers and Hoecakes,
Hambone, All That Jazz.
For ten years, she was a columnist and writer for the Columbia Daily Tribune, wherein in 1989, the Missouri Press Association named her the state’s best columnist. In 1992 she launched the Mid-Missouri Black Watch, which she edited and published quarterly on African American history and culture. This earned her television coverage on "The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour" in 1993. In 1996 she was presented with The Martin Luther King Jr. award for her commitment to leadership, service, multicultural amity, and ethical standards.
In 2001, she received the Governor's Humanities Award for Excellence in Community Heritage. During her career, she wrote for the Columbia Missourian, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Sedalia Democrat and contributed to several other publications. Nolan was a Taylor Chapel United Methodist Church member in Sedalia, MO.
She was active in multiple organizations over the years, including the Rose M. Nolen Black History Library and the Center for African American Studies Museum. Her interests included local history, Missouri African American history, and issues affecting working-class neighborhoods. Writing was her passion. Rose Mary Nolen, 79, of Sedalia, MO, passed away on January 1, 2015, at Fairview Nursing Home, in Sedalia.
