Rose Ellen Martin passed away peacefully in her sleep on July 9, 2009 in Kenmore, Washington, where she and her husband Jack have resided for the last ten years. Rose was the daughter of Henry and Ellen Plutchak and grew up in Mass City, Michigan. She and her husband and children lived in Rockland, Michigan for many years before moving to Detroit in 1960.

Rose and her husband made their corner grocery store a community center for their Detroit neighborhood for twenty years. She will be remembered as a great baker who fed multitudes of friends and family, a lover of all children and babies, and a teacher of generations of Sunday School students. She delighted in her rose garden and placed beautiful bouquets on the alter of St. Timothy's Lutheran Church every Sunday in summer. She lived a life of kindness, hard work, fierce determination, self-sacrifice, and unwavering faith and she will be remembered with great love by her family and friends.

Rose is survived by her beloved husband of 66 years Jack Porter Martin, her daughters Kathleen, Susanne, Peggy and Mary, her sons John and Fred, her grandchildren Rebecca, Andrew, Jessica, Jack, Elizabeth and Thomas, her great-grandchildren Jaiden, James, and Annalise, her brother Richard Plutchak and her sister Dixie Ann Penman as well as many cousins, nieces, nephews and extended family.

A funeral service for Rose will be held on Saturday, July 18 at 2:00 P.M. at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Ontonagon, to be followed by burial at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Rockland. A reception will be held at St. Paul's Methodist Church in Rockland following interment.