Memorial Services for First Female WC Firefighter

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Visitation, graveside service set for Westchester County's first female firefighter

(Original publication: September 20, 2007)

SLEEPY HOLLOW - A graveside service with firefighter's honors is planned Saturday for Ann Seminara Rose, who broke the gender barrier in 1979 when she became the first female member of a firehouse in Westchester County.

Known as "Fireman Ann," Seminara Rose died in July in Florida at age 61 - a little more than month before another woman, Lianne Navedo, broke the gender barrier in Yonkers by becoming the first female firefighter there in 111 years.

Seminara Rose had challenges breaking into the brotherhood even though both her father and her grandfather were former chiefs of what was then known as the North Tarrytown Fire Department.

Her adult children remember taunts at school and fights in the firehouse as a result.

A top fire department officer promised at the time in a newspaper interview that she would be "treated like a fireman, not a woman."

A visitation for Seminara Rose is planned from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. in the chapel at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, 540 North Broadway.

A graveside service will follow.