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By Chris Schafer
 Princeton resident Jerry Whitcomb knows the path well and he knows the fight.
In one week’s time Whitcomb will find himself on the Princeton High School track, circling the endless lines of luminary bags and listening to the applause of those around him.
This will be Whitcomb’s second year at the Princeton Relay for Life event and he admits his body — and his diabetes — don’t allow for him to walk too many laps but he gets out for a few. And he is always out there for the survivor’s lap.
Janell and Jerry Whitcomb created the team Rosie’s Rockers to commemorate Whitcomb’s late wife Rose Whitcomb.
Whitcomb suffered from skin cancer in 1998 and he defeated it. But he doesn’t walk for himself. Instead, surrounded by those who also know the fight, Whitcomb walks for a special individual who lost her battle.
When Whitcomb and his friends and family partake in the Princeton Relay for Life it will be under the banner of the team name “Rosie’s Rockers,” the name is a dedication to Whitcomb’s deceased wife Rose Whitcomb who lost her battle with gallbladder and bile duct cancer in August of 2005.
Jerry and his daughter Janell Whitcomb remember that when Rose got sick, it was very sudden. Instantaneously the family was forced to confront an impending loss, as well as take a look at its own mortality.
“Cancer is so dreaded,” Jerry said.
After she was diagnosed, Rose was booked for surgery at Hennepin County Medical Center. The procedure was supposed to take five hours but Jerry was paged after only an hour and a half. The surgeon told him that the cancer inside his wife was too wide-spread for them to remove and that they were sewing Rose back up.
When she came to, Rose realized herself that the situation was bad when she looked at the clock and noticed so little time had passed since she went in for surgery.
But as the entire family seemed to grapple with what was happening to Rose, the patient herself put the best foot forward.
“She didn’t do chemo,” Whitcomb said. “She said she didn’t want to spend her last couple months sick.”
Instead Jerry and Rose traveled to Arizona and they also saw the Grand Canyon. And for treatment Rose turned to drinks made of organic carrot juice.
Carrots Jerry peeled himself, sometimes eight to nine pounds of carrots.
And the family started to look at the Relay for Life as well.
The Whitcombs are no stranger to supporting such causes. Nearly every member of Jerry’s family has had cancer or passed away because of the disease. Right now his only remaining sister is in the midst of her own fight.
For years Jerry has bought luminary bags for other members of his family and Rose participated in the 15-mile MS walk.
Rose also walked in the Relay for Life in Waseca with her daughters before she even knew she was sick.
Janell and her sons have also walked in the past at other events with other groups.
Jerry said he and Rose donated to both the Relay for Life and MS causes. And they would like to do more but as Jerry said, “You can’t donate to everything.”
It was during the Relay for Life in 2005 that they got the call. “Dad called and said to come home, it wasn’t good,” Janell remembers.
The family went to the hospital to see Rose and make sure the children saw her one more time. But eventually Janell decided the children needed to be taken some place else, away from the hospital.
And so they went and walked.
In 2005, Janell and her kids, took to the track and became the first members of Rosie’s Rockers, long before the team was incepted. “I kept telling them we’re walking for Grandma Rose,” Janell said.
Rose Whitcomb survived that night before finally passing away Aug. 19, 2005.
In 2008 Rosie’s Rockers was created. “It was something we could do to remember her, to honor her,” Janell said.
“We know it’s too late for her but we can help someone else,” Jerry said.
The group had eight members in its first year, including Janell and Jerry. But Janell spent almost no time at the track as she had a child who was forced to the emergency room and they both watched the relay from his hospital bedroom. This year she plans to be there the entire evening.
Jerry will be there as well, along with some new team members. Rosie’s Rockers has grown from its original eight members to a full group of 15 this year, the most allowed on one team.
Joining the team is one couple who lost their two-year-old son to a brain tumor. Others on the team have had similar struggles with cancer. Everyone on Rosie’s Rockers has either had cancer or been a caregiver for someone who has.
Fund-raising has increased for the team as well as membership. Janell said the team had set a goal to raise $1,500. But last weekend the group passed the $2,000 mark.
Two thousand dollars buys a lot of luminary bags and Jerry said that is his favorite part of the event, just walking the track looking at all the bags. After the survivor’s walk, Jerry and his family will take a lap together to find all the bags donated for Rose and other friends and family.
Last year Jerry said there were several bags commemorating friends or family of his that didn’t come from Rosie’s Rockers.
The family put a picture of Rose on one luminary bag last year. This year the picture has been blown up and Rose’s picture will appear on 40 bags around the track.
And of course the money raised will also go towards funding research to finally end the fight against cancer.
“It’d just be nice if they found a cure for it,” Jerry said.
The Relay for Life will be held at the Princeton track July 31. The walk begins at 6 p.m. and ends at 6 a.m. Aug. 1.
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