By Albert Amateau
Rose Cossu, 91, active in Boy
Scouts, nurse for local doctors
Rose Cossu, a lifelong Greenwich Village resident who was a nurse for 50 years and active in the Boy Scouts movement for just as long, died Tues., May 10, at age 91 in Caroline Nursing Home in Denton, Maryland, where she resided for the past 18 months.
Born in December 1919, Rose Laieta had six brothers and sisters. She went to P.S. 3 in Greenwich Village and Textile High School on 18th St. at Ninth Ave. She married Steve Cossu in 1940 in Our Lady of Pompei Church on Carmine St. In the 1950s, she and her late husband founded Camp Spes Mundi, a summer camp in the Adirondacks for underprivileged Boy Scouts. Over 28 years, the volunteer-run camp was host to more than 4,000 boys.
Her devotion to scouting included serving as a Cub Scouts den mother for more than 50 years, continuing in her 80s even after open-heart surgery and breast cancer. Over the years, she earned the Bronze Pelican of the St. George’s Medal for Catholic Scouting and the Silver Beaver from the Boy Scouts of America for service to the national scouting movement.
In 1996, she was named Woman of the Year by the William Church Osborn Club of the Children’s Aid Society’s Greenwich Village center.
Rose Cossu became a familiar presence for two generations of Villagers as the nurse in the medical office of Dr. James G. Robilotti and Dr. J.G. Robilotti Jr.
Her son Stephen J. Cossu and his wife, Nancy, of Tilghman Island, Maryland, survive. Five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren also survive. Her husband and another son, Peter, died several years ago.
The funeral Mass was Mon., May 16, in St. Joseph’s Church on Sixth Ave. Donations may be made in her memory to St. Joseph’s Church or to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, 808 Commerce St., Easton, Md. Perazzo Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
