Sharon Rowe, 76, died at home in Durango, Colorado, on Dec. 2, 2015.

      Sharon was born in Butte, Montana on Jan. 19, 1939, to Elmer and Josi (Kostich) Rowe.   She had an older brother, Allan, with whom she shared the same birthday.   For a better part of her youth, she read voraciously, took ballet lessons, and spent weekends fly fishing along Montana’s Big Hole River.   In 1961, Sharon received a nursing degree at Carroll College in Helena, Montana.   She began her nursing career providing vaccinations on a Montana reservation.   The tribe members initially resisted being vaccinated, but Sharon’s persistence paid off.   To show her their appreciation, they gave her a leather jacket with a goat (for stubbornness) embroidered on the back.   She cherished that experience.   Thereafter, she enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and was stationed in New York, Rhode Island, and California.   On Dec. 1, 1962, Sharon married a U.S. Navy sailor, John M. Milliken, in Oakland, California.   A couple of years later, their only child, Edy, was born.   Sharon divorced in 1968, and continued to raise her daughter and develop a successful nursing career in the San Francisco Bay Area.

      In 1976, Sharon married Beyene Negewo.   After attending college classes at night, she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology in 1978 from the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, California.   Soon thereafter, she moved to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG) with her husband, daughter, and stepson to follow her husband’s employment.   While there, Sharon worked in the Department of Education and enjoyed the people she met and places she saw in her work.   She and her family returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1980.   Upon her return, Sharon resumed her nursing career at Chope Community Hospital in San Mateo, California until her retirement in 2000.

      About a year before she retired, she divorced her husband and moved to an ocean-view apartment.   Although she didn’t want to part from the Pacific, she agreed to move with her daughter and son-in-law to Durango, Colorado in 2000.   She lived next to them for the next 15 years.   During this time, she read books, gardened, and knitted many things for her family and people in the community.   After many years of putting down the guitar, she strived to re-learn it.   She also enjoyed volunteering around town and at her church, Sacred Heart Catholic Church.   She became certified as an Oblate.   Most of all, she enjoyed her home, family, and family dogs.   Sharon was an intelligent, caring and beautiful person, and had a great sense of humor.   During her retirement, she taught her daughter to knit.   She also protected, supported, educated and nurtured her loving daughter.   She tried and succeeded in leaving the world a bit better place.   She saved lives and changed people.   She will be greatly missed.

      She is survived by her daughter, Edy (Milliken) Zwierzycki, and son-in-law, John Zwierzycki.

      Services memorializing Sharon Rowe will be held at Sacred Heart Church (254 E. 5th Avenue, Durango, Colorado) at 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 9, and at 9 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016.   A memorial reception will be held at the Rochester Hotel (726 E. 2nd Avenue) from noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016.

      Express condolences at www.mtstandard.com.