Students, friends and family recall Roseanna Smith

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — A memorial service for Roseanna Smith, better known in Bloomfield as the business owner and dance instructor at Miss Roseanna’s School of Dance will be held at 1 p.m. this Saturday, June 3, at Watchung Presbyterian Church. Smith died May 3.

For 65 years, Smith taught dance at her studio located at 403 Broad St. According to a daughter, Susanna, her mother’s teaching career began at a young age. In an email Susanna wrote: “Mom started teaching dance classes in the basement of her parents home when she was 16 years old because a neighborhood boy wanted to learn to tap dance. He bugged her enough that she told him if he got five other children from the neighborhood together she would teach a tap class for him. A few weeks later him and five friends showed up on her doorstep and ‘Miss Roseanna’s’ was born.”

Smith, a lifelong Bloomfield resident, was born April 30, 1932. She grew up on Ridge Avenue, attended Franklin Elementary School, South Junior High School, and at the age of 16, graduated from Bloomfield High School, Class of 1948. After marrying, she lived on Hoover Avenue until March 1967. She then moved to 41 Meadow Lane and lived there for 50 years. She had four children, Roseanna, Duane, Susanna, and Dianna. The eldest, Roseanna, died 12 hours after birth. Her husband’s name was Harry.

According to her daughter, Smith began dance lessons at Miss Lillian’s School of Dance, in Newark, when she was 2 years old. She did this because she had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in her knees and a doctor advised her parents that exercise would keep her out of a wheelchair. Her father was Jack Brogan, chief of the Bloomfield Fire Department. Susanna said her grandparents were Peabody champions. Her grandmother’s name was Viola.

According to a former student and teacher for Smith, Katie Hickey, the Miss Roseanna Facebook page received more than 12,000 views when news of her death was posted. Hickey is currently operating the dance studio under the name “Shooting Star Dance Center.” Some of Smith’s former students recalled her fondly when contacted by this newspaper.

Deborah Lalli, a student from the late ‘50s to the mid-’60s, who began dancing herself as a 2-year-old, said “Miss Roseanna” could not do enough for people.
“She never put anyone down if they couldn’t dance,” Lalli said. “I mean, you had the best to the worst dancers. I was mediocre. But she taught me to believe in myself.”

Lalli learned tap, ballet, jazz and Hawaiian dance.
“She never got tired,” Lalli said. “We were always dancing outside the studio. We danced at the New York 1964 World’s Fair at the Hawaiian pavilion.”
As Smith’s student, Lalli also danced at Steel Pier, in Atlantic City, in a young performer’s showcase, “Tony Grant’s Stars of Tomorrow.” Smith also had her students dancing at local nursing homes.

“She branched out to aerobics in the 1980s,” Lalli said. “She went with what was popular.”

Smith attended the wedding of Lalli’s daughter and played in her mother’s canasta club.

“Both my daughters went to her dance studio,” she said. “She was a very good friend. I was devastated when I heard she had died. But I’ve lost someone every couple of months since October 2015. We were suppose to say goodbye. She was moving to Delaware to be with a daughter.”

Lalli took lessons until she was 17 when she graduated from BHS, the Class of 1972. She said that dancing with Miss Roseanna gave her the opportunity to make many friends. And for someone in the late-’50s who wanted to learn dancing, there were not that many studios.

Gail Di Domenico, a member of the board of Associated Dance Teachers, an organization promoting dance instruction, was not a Miss Roseanna student. She first met Smith in the 1980s. Di Domenico had joined ADT and Smith was a board member.

She said Smith was a mentor to all members even though they themselves were teachers.

“She was quite a force to reckoned with,” she said. “She never asked for help. She’s give you her opinion and the reasons why.”

Smith, she said, knew how to run the organization.
“She was well-acquainted with the rules,” Di Domenico said. “She didn’t think to bend them. A decision had to be good for everyone.”

Di Domenico said that for as long as she knew her, Smith was a board member.
“She was a member of the association since she was 16 years old,” Di Domenico said. “She said that for her to become a member, they had to make a specific category. We no longer have that category. Now you have to be 19 years old, pass dance exams — which she did with her conditional membership—and you have to be a teacher for three years and certified by our exams.”

Smith resigned about 1 1/2 years ago because of health issues, according to Di Domenico.

Jean Duncan, a member of the Watchung Presbyterian Church, took lessons from Smith, as did her daughter. She said Smith was also an elder at the church.
“I knew Roseanna through the school,” Duncan said. “I guess we just remained friends. You could always count on her.”

Duncan said Smith would never miss a recital given by her dancers.
“Going back a few years, she had a double knee replacement,” Duncan said. “We were suppose to perform Hawaiian dances at the Church on the Green. She was in rehab.”

Even then, Smith came out.
“She would always support her dancers,” Duncan said. “She taught us to love dance. She said everyone could dance and she was right.”
Smith made a comment that Duncan always remembered.

“She said my daughter reminder her of me,” Duncan said. “I think she had a soft spot for me. But I think she was that way with all her girls.”

And while her students practiced, “Miss Roseanna” would be telling them stories about her experiences, Duncan said.

Laura Stone took lessons as an adult but her daughters attended classes as children.
“She was much more than a teacher to my daughters,” Stone said. “She treated them as if they were her grandchildren.”

Recalling her own life, Stone said her husband had deserted the family, closing the bank accounts. He moved out of state.

“There were some times when money was tight for me,” Stone said. “I remember coming to her and crying that I couldn’t pay and take lessons. She just laughed and said, ‘You love to dance, you’re going to dance,’ She told me to come and dance if I wanted to. I always paid her back when I could.”

Another instance of kindness, Stone recalled, was when Smith would drive her daughter, Rose, home from dancing class. Stone had difficulty driving at night — one of her eyes was impaired.

Stone said that when her daughter Rose was inducted into the Junior National Achievement Society and given one ticket and told to give it to the person who influenced you the most in your life, the girl gave it to “Miss Roseanna.”
“It was one of the proudest moments in Roseanna’s life,” Stone said. “She always talked about Rose.”

Stone also recalled a student in her daughter’s class, a child with Down’s syndrome who took dancing lessons for 10 years.
“She never turned anyone down,” Stone said. “And all the children learned to be tolerant and patient. That class stayed together for years.”

Hickey said she became a student at the studio in the mid-1980s and worked her way up with Smith, from apprentice, to assistant teacher to teacher. Hickey majored in dance at college and in 2005 came back to teach for Smith.
“We had inclusive classes before the public schools,” Hickey said. “We were taught to be compassionate and that sums her up — everyone can dance, regardless of their limitations.”

Hickey said she likes the business end of running a studio but always wavered about having her own. But when Smith became too ill to continuing running the studio, Hickey said it was a natural transition for her to take up the reins. But Smith, during those last years, still made the final decisions.

“My kids called her grandma,” Hickey said. “I told the nurses in the hospital I was her non-biological fourth daughter. She was at my kids’ weddings and spent the holidays with us.”

The memorial service at Watchung Presbyterian Church for Roseanna Smith will begin at 1 p.m. The church is located at 375 Watchung Ave.