We lost our beautiful mother on Friday, October 9, 2020. She was diagnosed with cancer in June but wanted to be private about it. An intestinal bacteria infection took hold while her white blood count was down and she couldn’t fight it off. She had been handling the chemo with very little side effects, gardening and being active - we are grateful she felt great right up until the afternoon before she died. We’re also grateful to have had these months to spend extra time with her and tell her how much she means to us. She was an amazing woman and mother - tough, generous and loving. We have a fond memory of her standing up to a bully coach of our kids baseball team - nose to nose arguing that he couldn’t just keep the girls on the bench and play the boys. She was a superstar, not backing down until he agreed. She was active in PTA and appeared so many times at the School Board that they greeted her by name. She loved music and taught piano, violin and cello right up to her last days. She would talk about the difference it made in each of those children’s lives - it was so important to her. She played violin and did all manner of behind-the-scenes work for her beloved Inland Valley/Temecula Valley Symphony. She loved to garden and created a beautiful oasis of a backyard. There is so much more to say . . . We love you and miss you so very very much. We know you are up there organizing a heavenly orchestra and choir of angels outside in a beautiful garden and we know you will be in our hearts forever.
In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Sharon E. Rollinson Young Artist Fund at https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=CYZYW9VYJ87LY. Also, please feel free to add a memory or photo on the Memories & Condolences page.
Sharon Elizabeth Rollinson (1939-2020)
Sharon Elizabeth Rollinson (nee Robbins) was born September 5, 1939 in Glendale, CA to Harriet Elizabeth Robbins and Wallace Van Iderstine Robbins. Her sister, Joanne, was born just 14 months later and her sister, Kathlyn came 10 years later. The family attended Hollywood Presbyterian Church and were strictly devout, limiting the girls’ activities to school, church and orchestra. Sharon and her sisters learned to play violin and piano, played for church services and sang in the choirs. Sharon was concertmistress of the Eagle Rock High School orchestra and also played glockenspiel and percussion in the concert and marching bands. When she was 17, she performed the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 for a celebratory concert with the school orchestra.
Sharon was very independent from a young age. She attended Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC for one year, but after feeling stifled by the attitude towards female students, returned to complete her degree at UCLA. She proudly worked her way through a major in English, minor in music and a teaching credential by working for the producer John Ford in Hollywood, and for the non-profit People to People with Rafer Johnson.
In 1965 Sharon joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Afghanistan, where she taught English and math. There she met and began dating Joseph (Joe) Lyons Rollinson, who was teaching printing and helping create a newspaper. When their Peace Corps group was given a few weeks off, Sharon planned a detailed itinerary to travel through neighboring countries. Joe (who had not made a plan) went with her. This would be the beginning of a lifelong love of traveling together. On that three-week trip, the two bought their wedding rings and material for Sharon’s wedding dress. They were married in 1966 with two ceremonies – an Afghan ceremony on March 9th and a church wedding on March 10th.
After the Peace Corps, Sharon and Joe traveled extensively around Asia before returning home to the U.S. in 1967. Sharon worked while Joe finished his bachelor’s degree in Rochester, NY. Their first child, Suzanne, was born in Rochester in 1968. Joe continued on to complete an MBA at USC in Los Angeles before accepting a position with Copley Newspapers in San Diego, CA. They bought the family home in San Diego just months before the birth of their twins, Joseph and Janelle in 1971.
Sharon loved being home with her children and was very active as a volunteer with parent organizations as well as helping with orchestra and choir. She and Joe felt strongly that the children should be exposed to other cultures, and enrolled them in a Spanish immersion program, as well as hosting a number of international exchange students. Having been limited as to what she could participate in as a child, Sharon made sure that her children experienced as many things as possible. She spent many hours tirelessly driving them to soccer, baseball, scouts, dance, theatre, orchestra, art classes, etc. . . . and took joy in all their activities.
The family attended St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Clairemont, where Sharon taught Sunday School and helped with the children’s choirs. She taught her children to play violin – Suzanne later switching to viola and Joe to cello. The family played string trios and quartets at family gatherings and sometimes for church services.
When the twins were 12 years old, Sharon went back to work for the aerospace corporation, General Dynamics, as an executive secretary and later, as a senior buyer. She was part of the skeletan crew that closed down the giant San Diego corporation in 1993, after which she retired. Joe, who continued to work in printing, was promoted to a top managerial position in Temecula. He and Sharon moved the hour north-east of San Diego in the spring of 1996.
Sharon enjoyed her retirement by becoming active as a musician again. She played violin in several orchestras and casual chamber music groups. In Temecula, she became a founding member of the Inland Valley Symphony (later known as the Temecula Valley Symphony). TVS became her labor of love, and for many years she did every possible behind the scenes work, from copying and marking scores, to setting up the chairs and podiums, and was particularly proud of the outreach the symphony had begun to support music education in the schools. She stayed active in the Temecula Valley Symphony well after she and Joe moved back to San Diego in 2003.
When her grandchildren came along, Sharon resumed giving music lessons to them as well as to the children of neighbors and friends. She never charged for these lessons – it was her contribution, and her pleasure to share her knowledge and love of music, and she would often talk about how studying music had changed the lives of the young people she worked with.
Sharon loved to garden, and had created a beautiful oasis in the backyard of the family home in San Diego. She installed a comprehensive watering system herself that helped her grow fruit trees, vegetables, flowers and especially her prized roses. Even after she was diagnosed with cancer in early summer of 2020, she kept active gardening. She handled chemotherapy like a champ, with very little side effects. On the morning before she passed, Sharon was out gardening and feeling great. She began to experience chills in the afternoon and went to the emergency room with a very high fever. Just as she had lived her life, independent and in charge, she was lucid and present to tell the doctors exactly what she wanted, and passed on the morning of October 9th, 2020. She is survived by her husband of 54 years, Joseph L. Rollinson, sisters Joanne McNeal and Kathlyn Robbins, son Joseph R. Rollinson (Elise Rollinson), daughters Suzanne M. Rollinson (Jay Ran) and Janelle D. DeStefano and 7 grandchildren, Danica, McKenna, Hannah, AJ, Nicole, JT and Graziana.
In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Sharon E. Rollinson Young Artist Fund at https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=CYZYW9VYJ87LY. Also, please feel free to add a memory or photo on the Memories & Condolences page.
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