by Rob Allekotte, Boca, FL

Per Jana Bergdal:  Mimi Rosen (Miriam) was an interviewer and Servas evangelist (my words) from Philadelphia and Boca Raton.

People often ask how we first found out about Servas. I must go back about five decades to answer that question.

I was thinking that Halloween parties will never get old. And I must have had a few beers because I found myself dancing. At least, it was a version of me bouncing across our parlor parquet dance floor. I was an unconvincing Aunt Jemima, well-padded and brown-faced long before it became unfashionable at best and racist at worst for white people to revel in costume as Black people. Despite my uneven skin tone, other men at the party found my get-up attractive. Liberace groped me every time he sashayed by. And Herve Villachaise, an odd combination of This Old House and host, bedecked with a loose belt full of carpentry tools, salaciously whispered “De Plane” every time we passed. It was hard to take him seriously because, groveling on knee pads, he only came up to Jemima’s voluminous waist.

I was considering authoring a transvestite version of Black Like Me when a mysterious woman, face obscured behind a peacock-feathered Mardi Gras mask, asked me to dance. (Women are even more mystifying on October 31.) I accepted. Halfway through “Boogie Nights”, she bellowed, “Don’t you recognize me?” How could I? The flashing discount disco lights allowed only occasional glimpses of her bright blue eyes. The thumping bass line made recognition of familiar voices impossible.

Summoning my increasingly diminishing perceptive powers, I responded, “I don’t know who you are, but I might have seen that dress at a party on Ninth Street three or four years ago. (My wife Bette had instructed me that women like to hear about their clothes.)

“That was my party on Ninth Street!” I had a good excuse for sketchy recollections because that Halloween bash was my first real date with Bette. All other celebrants remained far off in the background. “It’s me, Nini!”

Not wanting to admit to my faulty memory, I followed up by shouting, “Where have you been?”

“I left Penn Treaty to travel the world for three years!”

Mimi and guides trekking near the China and Pakistan border

I understood the leaving Penn Treaty part. Most staff members left as soon as they could.  I adjusted my bra strap as I asked, “How did you travel for three years on your small salary?” I thought I heard the words “working the galley on a shrimp boat in Austria” and “joining service”, but I nodded as if I’d heard everything. A trio of ninja brandishing nunchaku gliding across the dance floor captured my attention. Were they invited? Would they become guests who hang around well after the music ended, too drunk to help straighten up? I concentrated and recited the numbers, 9-1-1, hoping I’d be able to recall them if the situation warranted. Desperately needing to board a new train of thought, I excused myself and headed toward the dining room bar.

I reviewed the short conversation with Nini as Bette and I sleepily rehashed the party the next morning, only I called her Tugboat Nini. “I talked to her, too. Only it’s not ‘Nini’. It’s Mimi. And she worked on a shrimp boat in Australia. You don’t remember her from the faculty lounge?”

Aha! Australia made more sense. I was having trouble imagining the Von Trappe’s kids’ pulling marionette strings and singing, “High on a hill stood a lonely shrimper….” Meanwhile, Bette supplied a brief description of Servas. Once we combined our memories, we followed up. It’s no overstatement to write that one single dance floor conversation changed our lives more than any other I can recall.

That encounter became relevant once again when we read, while cruising on Thanksgiving Day, that Mimi Rosen had passed away. We were surprised but not shocked. Mimi’d received a diagnosis of three simultaneous cancers about a year ago. Two of the three protocols were successful. During that year, Mimi continued to volunteer at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute and usher at various cultural events. She continued her quest to experience every single place on earth, having returned from diving in the Dutch Antilles a few short months ago.

Together with Mimi, we skied the mountains of Europe and North America and vacationed in the Caribbean with our families. We trekked the Pakistani Himalayas long before "Islamic" and "terrorist" became a compound noun. Mimi hired a horse to get her through the difficult portions. She survived. (I am unsure about the horse.) We even thrived during the pandemic by bicycling around the four-mile perimeter of the village we share in Florida. It was a pleasure sharing our memories and dreams, too. During Mimi's final year, she grew much closer to her Servas member daughter, Kalie. She is also survived by her husband, Scott Birnbaum.

Mimi was a force in every relationship she shared. She was kind, giving, interesting, interested, and inspirational. She was an ambassador for Servas going back to that 1970s Halloween party. Those of us who knew Mimi Rosen are thankful for the effect she had on us. If Servas ever adds "perpetual" to our categories of membership, Mimi Rosen will be a charter member.