Rose Lee Howard Robinson, 85, a longtime resident of Jackson, died on March 24, 2026 after a long battle with leukemia.
Mrs. Robinson was born in Shawnee, Okla. on Jan. 30, 1941, to the late Carl H. and A. Dozier Howard. Raised in Shawnee, she graduated from Shawnee High School in 1959. All her life, she maintained contact with her beloved Oklahoma friends and family. In the fall of 1959, she entered the University of Oklahoma where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. Within the first two weeks of college, she met “Joey” Robinson of Bossier City, La. and lost all interest in dating anyone else. The couple married two years later on June 10, 1961. After their marriage, they moved to Shreveport, where Joseph graduated from Centenary College in 1963. Joe entered LSU Medical School in New Orleans that fall and Rose Lee became a teller in the main office of Hibernia National Bank, a job she thoroughly enjoyed. The Robinsons lived in the “brand new” medical student apartment building in downtown New Orleans and experienced their first of several serious hurricanes as Betsy roared through the crescent city. Rose Lee was able to reach the downtown bank by foot the following morning to the great relief of bank officers and customers, the only teller able to get there. Joe graduated from medical school in 1967, and the couple moved to Shreveport for his internship at Confederate Memorial Medical Center. Their two children, Mary Catherine and Patrick Dozier, were born during the next two years.
Joe’s internship ended in the summer of 1968, and he entered the U.S. Navy, being assigned as Chief Medical Officer at the Naval Construction Battalion Center (CBC) in Gulfport. He achieved the rank of Lt. Cmdr. and received the Navy Commendation Medal for his leadership during Hurricane Camille, which arrived on their son’s first birthday and devastated their home. The family moved into the CBC Base’s officers’ housing. During those years, Rose Lee gave many hours to the Navy Relief Society as a volunteer case worker as well as serving in several capacities in the Naval Officers’ Wives’ Association.
At the end of Joe’s tour in the Navy, the family moved back to New Orleans where Joe began his dermatology residency in the LSU/Tulane program at Charity Hospital. The family lived in Metairie during those years and made many dear friends among neighbors, other medical residents and the parishioners of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, where Rose Lee served as Sunday School superintendent. In 1974 the family moved to Shreveport where Joe began private practice, the children entered St. Mark’s Episcopal School and Rose Lee served as superintendent of St. Mark’s Church Sunday School. In 1977, Jackson friends convinced the Robinsons that a move back to Mississippi was a wonderful idea. That was certainly true. For Rose Lee, it was a homecoming of sorts as her mother was an Indianola girl and, as a youngster, many summers had been spent in the Delta. In Jackson, she loved reestablishing friendships from those younger days and becoming a permanent resident of the state she had learned to love at her mother’s knee and in her grandparents’ home.
Parish life at St. Andrew’s Cathedral was central to the Robinson family. The children were confirmed there, served as acolytes and were married there. Rose Lee served in many capacities at the Cathedral including Sunday School teacher, Befriender, vestry member twice and, for over 25 years, chair of the Adopt-A-School partnership between the Cathedral and Rowan Middle School. In that capacity she served on boards of Partners in Education, both at city and state levels and gave many presentations on the subject of effective public school/community partnerships. This ministry was a beloved mission for her. Rose Lee was also active for years in medical auxiliaries, serving as president of the Central Medical Alliance and as a member of the board of the Mississippi State Medical Association Auxiliary. For 30 years, she was office manager for Joe’s dermatology practice.
Rose Lee loved her friends and enjoyed membership in several women’s groups, often somehow ending up as treasurer in perpetuity. Most important to Rose Lee were her children, Mary Catherine and Patrick, their big extended family and especially, when they came along, their five grandchildren. She and Joe loved taking the grandchildren on trips, sometimes as a group, sometimes individually. Rose Lee produced a gift scrapbook/photo album for each trip, wanting to be sure the “grands” could go back and relive happy memories…such as the train trips to New Orleans with each little boy as he turned two and the time when, as a 70 something grandmother, she went ziplining through tall Georgia pines with her two teenaged granddaughters.
Rose Lee and Joe Robinson were devoted to each other through smooth times and rough and felt their marriage was a blessing from God. Joe often said God sent him to Oklahoma University so he could find Rose Lee and not for the engineering degree he planned at the time. They were married for 65 years.
Rose Lee is survived by her spouse; two children; and five grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her mother and father and brothers, Alvan Dozier Howard Jr., and John Hogin Howard.
Visitation is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at St. Andrew’s Cathedral. Funeral services will be at the Cathedral at 11:00 a.m., followed by interment in the cathedral columbarium. Sebrell Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
The family requests that memorials be made to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral, PO Box 1366, Jackson, MS 39215.
