Loving family matriarch and retired Massapequa School District teacher Rosemary M. Owens died Oct. 13, 2008. She would have been 82 years old in November.

Born November 5, 1926 in Brooklyn to Paul D. and Rosemary (Lawrence) Murphy, she was raised in Rockville Centre. She lived on West Shore Drive in Massapequa for 57 years.

For many years she worked out of R.J. Lockhart and Unqua Elementary schools in Massapequa as a teacher of art and music. After her retirement in 1982 she continued to teach art and piano from out of her home studio and was a devout parishioner at St. Martin of Tours R.C Church in Amityville.

Mrs. Owens leaves behind her husband, Morgan M.; her children: Morgan M. Jr. and his wife Gladys of West Islip, Rosemary T. Labozza and her husband John of Ossining, Maureen A. Gismervik of Oceanside, Dr. Paul J. and his wife Mary of Sparta, New Jersey, Maria E. Forenza and her husband Steven of Setauket;16 grandchildren; her siblings: Andrew L. Murphy, Marguerite McKenzie, Peter Murphy, Joseph Murphy and Marie McDermott; her nieces and nephews: Jean Ann and John Abate and many others.

She reposed at the Powell Funeral Home, Amityville, on Oct. 15, 2008. A Funeral Mass was said on Oct. 16, 2008 in St. Martin of Tours R.C. Church, Amityville. Interment followed in Holy Rood Cemetery, Westbury.