Person:Roszella Halbert (1)

Biography

Roszella, known as Rosie, to many, was born in Dony (now called McDowell), Kentucky to Loueasie (Howell) and Bill Halbert. She, like her father, lived with a bleeding disease called Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT). A CT scan in her later years showed a marked lack of grey matter in the left side of her brain. It is believed that the sickness she remembered experiencing at a young age, and was thought to be Polio by many, was in fact a type of stroke or aneurism related to the HHT. Upon hearing the results of the CT scan, she joked that she only had half a brain. That was her perspective on everything in life - her glass was always half full, never half empty. This left her with a diminished right side that hindered use of her right hand and arm and prevented her from ever running. Despite, or perhaps, in spite of, her physical challenges and the social stigma of being known as "Bill Halbert's little crippled girl," she went to school, became a teacher, and had a family. She suffered additional loss and hardship including the sudden and violent death of her husband, Banner Lewis, Jr., but there was never a person who endured all of this as gracefully as she. She clung to her Lord and Savior with a simple, childlike faith, and found joy wherever she could find it. She loved her family, books, church, teaching ESL and watching ice skating.