Cover photo for Rosalie Knost Ambler's Obituary
Rosalie Knost Ambler Profile Photo

Rosalie Knost Ambler

d. July 26, 2018

Rosalie Knost Ambler

Rosalie's youthful spirit left this world on July 26---she was celebrated by her Cenacle Sisters with a Funeral Mass in Chicago on July 30. Sister Rosalie Knost Ambler was 93. Her life will again be celebrated by family and friends with a Mass of Christian Burial at St. Pauls Chapel in her hometown of Pass Christian, Mississippi on Friday August 10 at 4pm, with burial to follow at Live Oak Cemetery. Rosalie attended St. Josephs Academy in Bay St Louis and went onto Newcomb College in New Orleans where she was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority. She completed her academic studies at Tulane University, earning her Master’s Degree in Psychology. Rosalie's early career path led her to Naval Air Station Pensacola, where as a civilian she worked alongside a medical team whose main focus was pilot training and performance. She co-authored a myriad of papers on the subject and assisted in projects that sent monkeys into Space and subsequently developed psychological and physical tests used in determining the Mercury 7 Astronauts. She assisted the team with a little monkey named Ms Baker and in so doing Rosalie and her colleagues ensured the next phase of space flight exploration would commence. In addition, while at Pensacola she developed strategies to improve pilots eye acuity that were later utilized by Major League Baseball teams to improve batters ability to follow a ball from a pitchers hand to their bat. When asked, she likened these tests for improving eye acuity to, "teaching the eye to read the label on a 45 record while spinning on a turntable". Rosalie marveled at all of the Mercury 7 Astronauts achievements but she was especially amazed by Major John Glenn's physical abilities. "Well and above all the others", she stated emphatically and she would know since she tested all 32 candidates NASA deemed eligible for the Mercury Program. In the early 1970's the Kansas City Royals approached Rosalie to be a part of their science based "academy" for baseball development, but Rosalie had another kind of development in mind--that of a Cenacle Nun. She was 50 and started anew, and in 1975 she entered the Cenacle, utilizing another less scientific aspect of her psychological training, to counsel retreatants at the Metairie Cenacle. This mid-life call was greeted, "with the same joy, passion, and giftedness that marked her earlier years. Retreatants found her faith, enthusiasm, southern hospitality and down to earth guidance extremely helpful", her Provincial, Sister Rose Hoover, wrote of her. After 28 years at the Metairie Cenacle, Hurricane Katrina and health issues compelled Rosalie’s move to the Chicago Cenacle and onto the Cenacle Community of Sisters at the Presence Resurrection Life Center. There she relished the company of her fellow Sisters and would sit outside her room as if sitting on the front porch at home in the Pass, greeting, laughing and visiting with friends. She was a happy old soul who, up until the week she died, smiled and almost giggled when she spoke to people, weather she recognized who they were or not--she was glad to be chatting with whomever. Rosalie's interests were varied, but chief among them was sailing. Her happy place would be on a Fish Class sailboat out in the Gulf with her cousin, Lolette Wittmann, battling with the wind and other sailors, calling on Saint Antonio to "Blow Antonio Blow". She also enjoyed hiking in her younger years, traversing the Appalachian Trail as a Girl Scout Leader. Photography was a hobby she excelled at as well. Rosalie became THE photographer of the family and always had a camera near. Her slide shows were a fixture at family gatherings--Knost Family Netflix--tack a bed sheet on the wall and get the projector--old school binge watching. Her Pensacola home was a welcome and casual place that she invited all to enjoy. Friends, aunts and uncles, cousins, even unruly children and teens, and a host of nuns, treasured these interludes and all left wanting to return. Rosalie enjoyed her family or as she called them "my People" and traveled far and wide to stay connected and explored the world along the way. From the last voyage of the Queen Elizabeth I, to work trips to Europe for NATO meetings, with stop overs in England for a cousins reunion, usually bringing a family member along. From "simple" road trips with her four aunts, to beach days with Edna and young cousins, she did it all with an ease and aplomb that created cherished and indelible memories. Rosalie was preceded in death by her brother, Phillip St. George Ambler IV and their parents, Phillip St George Ambler III and Rosalie Knost Ambler. She leaves behind sister in law, Sarah Pinckney Ambler of Charleston, South Carolina and a long list of cousins who knew the intellectual, scientific, spiritual, silly, young at heart, dog loving, porch potato that was Rosalie. Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Home, 15th Street, Gulfport is in charge of arrangements. View and sign register book at www.bradfordokeefe.com
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Past Services

Mass of Christian Burial

Friday, August 10, 2018

Starts at 4:00 pm

Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home - Gulfport

59 Wayside Rd, Stuart, VA 24171

Enter your phone number above to have directions sent via text. Standard text messaging rates apply.

Cemetery

Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home - Gulfport

59 Wayside Rd, Stuart, VA 24171

Enter your phone number above to have directions sent via text. Standard text messaging rates apply.

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