By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Mallow, 83, was born Feb. 22, 1922, in Cassopolis. He moved to Dowagiac as a small boy. He went to grade school at the old Oak Street School where Justus Gage is today.
He ranked first in tennis in area school competition and placed third in Junior Nationals in Kalamazoo.
In his junior year of high school Mallow worked for former Rotarian Glenn McLauchlin in the school co-op program as a mortuary apprentice.
After high school he attended Worsham Mortuary College in Chicago.
Mallow was licensed at 21, but had to wait until he became that age to receive it. He worked for McLauchlin for 20 years and held his mortuary license for almost 40 years.
Mallow went into the car business in 1958 because it afforded him more time for family, football, basketball and tennis.
He just celebrated his 61st wedding anniversary. On April 30, 1944, he married Anna Marie "Sis" Ely, Miss Dowagiac 1941.
Their son, Gary, lives at Lake Charlevoix. Their daughter, Nancy Spinazze, livings in Arlington Heights, Ill. They have three grandchildren: Mark, 27; Jamie, 23; and Annie, 21.
Mallow worked for Bob Benincasa Ford, Bob Howe Ford and Pat Abiney Chrysler Dodge. He was Cass County coroner for a number of years.
He was 1981 president of the Chamber of Commerce and an Elk since 1954, including Past Exalted Ruler.
Mallow served in World War II in field artillery, earning a Purple Heart. He spent eight months at Percy Jones in Battle Creek after returning from five months at a hospital in England. He was discharged in 1945.
Mallow was inducted into Rotary in 1958. He served as club president in 1984-85 and has received the Paul Harris Fellow for community service.
It was during his presidency that the idea of Rotary Villa senior citizens complex was conceived, with much preparation done, but to the disappointment of the club HUD funding was not approved.
That did not stop the momentum to fill a need in Dowagiac.
The Red Rose citation originated in 1945, when Superintendent of Schools Arthur Fraze, a charter member, put into action the ceremony designed to "praise sincere endeavor, when praise will spur it on, withholding kind words never until the friend is gone."
On Feb. 2, 1945, Frazee wrote to Leon Montague, executive chairman of Rotary International: "This then is the philosophy which inspires and gives sanction to the Red Rose citation. It came into existence after we were asked to eulogize the memories of three departed Rotarians in as many months. We had known and loved them as fellow members and associates. Eulogies are so futile. We wondered why we had not said some of those fine things to them while they were living. The military decorates its heroes. Motion pictures award Oscars. Nobel and Pulitzer prizes are given for outstanding achievements in literature, science and the arts. Yet Rotary made no provision for such recognition."
Frazee and Graham Woodhouse traveled the length of the district, which at the time was the only international district in Rotary International, spanning from Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, to the Indiana State Line, promoting this type of recognition to individual Rotary members.
From the annual District 636 meeting in Grand Rapids it found its way into the editorial pages of Rotarian magazine in August 1945.
The issue told of the use of the ceremony among many Michigan Rotary clubs.
Today, Red Rose to the Living has spread worldwide throughout Rotary International for the same original purpose conceived by the Dowagiac club.
Woodhouse, who became the city's longtime mayor, chaired the Red Rose Committee for the Dowagiac club from the time of Frazee's death in 1946 until he died in a 1989 auto accident.
Past District Governor Dave Groner has chaired this committee, of which Snow is a member, since 1990.