Rosanna Dengg Weissert

Rosanna Dengg Weissert, age 74, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, April 2, 2025.

Born Rosanna Marie Dengg on July 9, 1950, she was raised in the rolling hills of Masontown, West Virginia on the edges of Appalachia, where her earliest years were shaped by deep family roots, dirt roads, and the quiet strength of her community. Her father worked in a coal mine and neither of her parents had completed high school before starting a family. But they worked hard, taking shifts on opposite schedules, trying to build something better for their children. As the oldest of eight, Rosanna helped raise her siblings long before she raised her own. At 5 years old she stood on a stool in her grandmother’s farmhouse to help wash dishes without running water, and often tended to her siblings. Her family was her first calling, and that would echo through the rest of her life.

At Streetsboro High School, after the family moved to Ohio for better work, Rosanna bloomed. She was named “Most Likely to Succeed,” was an original member of the National Honor Society at her school, was active in many clubs, and graduated Salutatorian of the class of 1968. She received a four-year Ford Foundation scholarship and attended Kent State University, where she studied Pre-Law, then earned her Juris Doctor from West Virginia University in 1977. She opened a door no one else in her family had walked through, and in doing so, widened the path for everyone who came after.

She practiced law for many years, beginning in Waynesburg, PA, where she served as a child advocate for juvenile cases as the Solicitor for the Domestic Relations division. After moving to Pittsburgh, she worked as Senior Deputy Attorney General until she left to continue growing her family. While Rosanna was raising her youngest daughters, she never lost her desire to help people. She continued to serve as an arbitrator with legal aid groups, and volunteer with organizations supporting people with developmental disabilities, the homeless, and underserved families.

It was not uncommon for her children to come home and find a new “friend of Mommy’s” at the table, or to find missionaries, a friend-of-a-friend, family member, or someone in need would be living with them for a while. Rosanna always joked she was bad at being “a real attorney” because she never made any money like the heartless lawyer stereotype. More often than not clients came in as paying clients and as she saw the injustice of their circumstances, she would end up working pro-bono because she didn’t have the heart to stop helping them.

Rosanna met and married Mark Weissert in 1983 after meeting him on his first visit to Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church, where she pointed out her daughters from her first marriage, Christy, and Tammy, singing in the children’s choir. For their first date he asked her to join him on a Saturday project of helping his cousin move across town and she showed up, thus indicating that she knew what she was signing up for when she married him exactly 6 months from the day they met. She supported her husband across his career moves and business endeavors and was up for any adventure no matter where his work took him.

In her personal life, she was naturally quiet, creative, and an avid writer – of legal demands to request compliance and behavioral reform of her minor children (postmarked and hand delivered to their rooms), and of family newsletters, children’s stories, fiction, and memories of her life and childhood. If you got a letter from Rosanna, you read it twice. Once to feel it. Once to recover from it.

She loved gardening, quilting, crocheting, baking, and bluegrass music. She played gospel hymns and old country music with the car windows down whenever the opportunity presented itself. She taught herself to play guitar in her youth and spent many years trekking her younger children to orchestra practice and music lessons. When there were no more music lessons to drive to, she took up mandolin lessons for herself. While quiet, she had a piercing wit. That dry, blink-and-you-missed-it, perfectly timed jab that left you laughing only to realize you’d actually been roasted.

Rosanna never lost her connection to West Virginia or her sprawling family no matter how far life took her. Visiting meant winding slowly down country roads, stopping at nearly every house along the way to hug a cousin, an aunt, or one of the grandmothers who helped raise her. Family reunions and vacations were frequent and full of stories, laughter, and sometimes just a little trouble.

She believed in teaching her five daughters, Christina, Tamara, Delphia, Cecilia, and Joanna, to think critically, write powerfully, and stand their ground. The lessons were sometimes spoken –“You CAN draw blood with a scathing letter” – but more often by example. How she prioritized visits to family, stayed humble, and wasn’t afraid of rolling up her sleeves. Though soft spoken, she was never timid, and when her jaw set, eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and words fell slowly, the quiet could become fierce.

Her faith was ever-present. From her earliest days at Mt. Zion Church in West Virginia, it quietly shaped her sense of justice, compassion, and responsibility to the people around her. At her best, she tried to live this in practice in her daily life. In the way she treated strangers like family. In the way she stood up for those who had no one else. Even in the way she volunteered her children to play music and sing at what seemed like every nursing home and senior center in the tri-state area. Her particular passion for ministering to the elderly likely originated from her time working at the nursing home her grandmother operated—named Roseann’s in her honor as the first grandchild.

She is survived by her husband of 41 years, Mark J. Weissert; her five daughters, Christina (Brian) Bradley, Tamara (Christopher) Donahue, Delphia (Matthew) McCarty, Cecilia Weissert, and Joanna Weissert; and her six grandchildren, Zachary Bradley, Hannah Bradley, Kaybre Donahue, Lena Donahue, Milena McCarty, and Dolores McCarty. She is also survived by five of her seven siblings. Edwinia Messenger, John (Jana) Dengg, Linda (Wayne) Slack, Gloria Beth Dengg, and Candace Dengg. She is preceded in death by her parents, Edwin and Mildred Dengg, and her brothers Fred and Frank Dengg.

She leaves behind the memory of a life lived to protect, to advocate, and to serve. The old hymns she sang of rugged crosses, hilltop mansions, and unbroken circles were not just songs she sang while scrubbing the dishes, but reminders of what she believed: of the promise of a better place, that we’ll be reunited in the end, and that beyond the trials of this life is joy forevermore.

She believed in that mansion just over the hilltop, and we like to think it’s down a winding country road, with a sunny porch, a flourishing garden, and a long table filled with her family who went before her.

Calling hours will be at WILLIAM SLATER II FUNERAL SERVICE (412-563-2800) 1650 Greentree Rd, Scott Twp. PA 15220 on Sunday, April 6th, 2025, from 2-4 PM and 6-8 PM, .Funeral Services will be at Mt. Lebanon Evangelical Presbyterian Church on Monday, April 7th, 2025 at 11AM with a reception to follow, 255 Washington Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15216. Burial will be at Evergreen Cemetery in Streetsboro, Ohio on Tuesday, April 8th at 12 PM.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in Rosanna’s memory to Neighborhood Legal Services, 928 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, https://nlsa.us/donate/.

www.slaterfuneral.com