Wakae "Rose" Wesp

Wakae "Rose" Wesp, 93, of Sioux City, died Tuesday, April 10, 2018, at a local hospital.
Memorial services will be 1 p.m. Friday at Morningside Chapel, Christy-Smith Funeral Homes. Burial of her cremains will be in Memorial Park Cemetery. Visitation will be noon until service time Friday at the funeral home.
Wakae Kobayashi was born in Yokosukashi, Japan, to Shikazo and Yae (Kijimoto) Kobayashi, the youngest of five children.
She married Thomas K. Wesp, who was serving in the U.S. Army in Tokyo, Japan, on July 11, 1951. They came back to America later that year, where she was welcomed into her American family. Since Tom was a military career man, they moved to several different locations around the world. She became a U.S. citizen in 1954. Her husband, Capt. Thomas Wesp, was tragically killed in a plane crash while serving at Fort Lewis, Wash., as a flight instrument instructor on Jan. 6, 1962. Following his death, she moved back to Sioux City to be near family.
Rose, as she was affectionately known by her family and many friends, was very artistic. She did some oil painting and some craft projects, but her main love was flowers. She worked at several locations and after attending school in Denver for floral and fashion design, she became a talented designer and had been a mainstay designing floral arrangements for all occasions at Flowerland for more than 40 years. She traveled to Japan to visit her family there frequently and maintained a close relationship with her Japanese family. She was a former member of Third Presbyterian Church.
She is survived by many nieces and nephews in Japan; her sister-in-law, Dorla Wesp Verhey of Mitchell, S.D.; niece, Deborah Verhey of Cody, Wyo.; nephews, Duane (Vernice) Verhey of Renner, S.D., Kim (Jayne) Verhey of Madison, S.D., and Mike (Tammy) Verhey of Fargo, N.D.; many grandnieces and nephews in South and North Dakota; and her many friends in Sioux City.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband; her sisters and brothers in Japan; her in-laws, Bernice and Frank Wesp; and a brother-in-law, Donald Verhey.