Portrait of Rose Mary Register. IMB Photo
Rose Mary Register, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in the Holy Land, died Aug. 17, 2025. She was 86.
Rose Mary was born Nov. 11, 1938, in Peru, Indiana, to the late Charles Allen Rich and Mary Emma Adams Rich. She graduated from Anacostia High School in Washington D.C., received her nursing diploma from Newport Hospital Nursing School, Newport, Rhode Island, and attended Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina, and North Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount.
During her childhood, her family moved around the country several times while her father served in the U.S. Navy. While seeking missionary appointment, she recalled their three years in San Diego, California, as “probably my happiest and the most important to my spiritual life.” Through the influence of a friend, she attended church and joined the junior choir. She wrote, “It was through the hymns that I came to learn the gospel. My girlfriend and her parents also answered questions I had and I became convicted that I wanted to accept Jesus as my Savior and be baptized.” At church camp, she heard some missionaries speak and “began to wonder if the Lord could use me as a missionary.”
Following graduation from high school, she entered nursing school and became involved in Baptist Student Union. She met Ray Register at a BSU retreat, and they were married on June 10, 1957, by their BSU director. After graduation from nursing school and the birth of their first child, Rose Mary took courses in Bible and theology at Southeastern seminary and held the first of several nursing jobs before their missionary appointment. Ray served as a pastor. She wrote, “Together, Ray and I have been praying about and planning for missionary service.”
In 1964, the International Mission Board appointed Ray and Rose Mary missionaries to the Holy Land. Her family said that along with homeschooling her three children, she assisted in founding the annual Galilee Jewish-Arab believers meeting, led hand bell choir, and catalogued the Nazareth Hospital Nursing School library. She also served alongside Jewish women, teaching the Bible and discipling Vietnamese refugees.
She is survived by her husband of 68 years, Ray G. Register Jr.; three children, Dr. Charles G. Register of Moscow, Russia, James A. Register of Rancho Bernardo, California, and Cheryl Cady of Temecula, California; a sister, Janet Mangold of Wenatchee, Washington; and five grandchildren.
A funeral service was held Oct. 10 at Bethel Baptist Church in Escondido, California, with burial in Miramar National Cemetery, San Deigo.
Read an obituary here.