Carrie Rozelle (née Dike; October 31, 1937 – October 29, 2007) was a Canadian-born American disabilities activist, whose struggles with her own learning-disabled son, Jack, led her to establish the National Center for Learning Disabilities. Rozelle was married to former
NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, who died in 1996.
Born in
Port Dalhousie, Ontario to Philip and Ziva Dyke, she was married to Ralph Kent Cooke, son of
Jack Kent Cooke, a Canadian businessman and onetime owner of the
Washington Redskins and
Los Angeles Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Lakers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The Lakers play their ...
, for thirteen years until their divorce in 1972. They had four children, three sons and a daughter. Jack, born with learning disabilities, died in 1990.
Jack Cooke's severe
dyslexia
Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...
and "sense of failure" created what Rozelle described as "a hurricane." These experiences led her to establish the Foundation for Children With Learning Disabilities in 1977, organizing a charity ball in
Manhattan to raise funds.
In her twelve years as chairwoman, the organization provided grants for public awareness programs in schools, daycare centers, museums, and summer camps. It ran parent-education workshops, created book collections for children with matching tapes and film strips, and held training sessions for librarians.
The foundation, which became known as the National Center for Learning Disabilities in 1989, provides support to more than a million families a year and has an annual budget of four million dollars. It focuses on early screening programs (about three hundred fifty thousand children were tested in 2006); informing parents on how to deal with school systems, and promoting public policies connected with the rights of the learning disabled.
Rozelle died of cancer on October 29, 2007, two days before her seventieth birthday, in
Rancho Santa Fe, California. She was survived by her three children, a stepdaughter, and five grandchildren.
References
External links
*http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/11/12/widow_of_pete_rozelle_dead_at_69/4721/
*https://web.archive.org/web/20071102202639/http://www.ncld.org/content/view/873/456076/
*http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-rozelle3nov03,0,5206330.story?coll=la-news-obituaries
*https://web.archive.org/web/20070713183347/http://www.schwablearning.org/articles.aspx?r=716
*http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read/113516
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rozelle, Carrie
1937 births
2007 deaths
Canadian activists
People from Rancho Santa Fe, California
Activists from Ontario
Deaths from cancer in California
People from St. Catharines