Rose Quiroz

Rose Quiroz loved God, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. She loved her family and her country. Rose Quiroz was born Rosario Marmolejo on October 7th, 1934, near Parlier, CA. to Canuto and Tomasa Marmolejo. Rose was the perfect example of the American Dream. Her parents were migrant farm laborers who with her sisters would work in the fields from dusk until it was time for school. After school, her father would pick her up and immediately go back to work in the fields until it got dark. Her father would eventually lease some land and her family would grow their own produce to sell to the marketplace. She always gave credit to her father for giving her a strong work ethic which she instilled in her children. Two events happened early in her life that she carried with her until she passed. Her little sister, Teodulita, was born in 1935 and died in 1936. Even tough Rose was incredibly young at the time and Teodulita life was truly short, Rose felt a strong connection with her and would bring flowers to her gravesite regularly. Her mother passed away when Rose was only 10 years old from chronic interstitial nephritis. Rose also continued to bring flowers to her mom’s gravesite until she passed away. On February 15, 1953, she married Daniel Estrada, bought a house in Santa Ana, and started a family. She gave birth to (In order) Sylvia, Alice, Rosemary, Diane, Daniel, and Cynthia. She always wanted to have six children. After working for years for someone else running a backhoe and installing sewer pipes around the county, Daniel kept talking about starting his own company. Since Rose was a little girl, she had always known had to save money. She encouraged Daniel to open the business and told him that she had saved enough to do so. With Rose’s help, Daniel was highly successful in the contracting business installing sewer pipes in local cities like Tustin and Santa Ana. Rose would help sometimes with a shovel and even running a jack hammer. Rose realized, since she had mostly girls, that Daniel needed to find a business that would provide work for their girls for the future. After 20 years of working as a General Contractor, Daniel had turned in his general contracting license for a real estate license. One day Daniel asked Rose to wait with his clients while he was on his way into the office. Upon arriving, Daniel noticed how well Rose interacted with his clients and suggested Rose show them the property. It was at this point that Rose felt a sense of satisfaction by providing couples with a place to live and start a family. Rose received her real estate license and then her broker license and together they opened Estrada Realty, one of the first Hispanic owned real estate companies who specialized in providing Hispanics with home ownership. They eventually opened their own Escrow Company, Santa Ana Escrow, and Real Estate School. Her first four girls all took part in the company and eventually some ventured out and started their own companies. This was Rose’s dream, and it made her happy. During their 35 years of marriage, Rose and Daniel acquired several rental properties that Rose managed. She would often encourage her tenants to buy their own house. She often helped by loaning them money to get the loan process started or cutting her commission and getting the other agents and lenders to cut their commissions, so they were able to fund the loan. Rose once encouraged the daughter of one of her tenants to buy property. The father kept telling her daughter that she would never be able to do it and discouraged here from wasting her time. Rose was very tenacious and believed anyone could do anything if they honestly believed. She kept encouraging this woman to buy until one day this woman ended up owning her own house. Ex-clients would stop her on the street to thank her for her encouragement and some would tell her that they even bought their own rental property. Over the course of her life, Rose helped a lot of people reach their goal of owning a home and getting a piece of that American Dream. After 35 years of marriage, Rose and Daniel divorced. Rose was uncertain what she was going to do. She had received half the rental properties in the divorce settlement. Those tenants now were encouraging Rose to open her own real estate company. Ex-Clients and people who were referred by them were looking for Rose so she could help them find a place. All those people who she encouraged to buy property now were giving her the encouragement to continue doing what she loved to do. First, she had to change her name. Rose Estrada would be affiliated with Estrada Realty. Her maiden name Rose Marmolejo would be affiliate with her sister’s real estate company, Marmolejo Realty. She decided to take her mothers maiden name and changed it to Rose Quiroz and opened Rose Real Estate. She continued to do what she liked to do, helping couples find a place where the can create a future. But with the creation of the internet and computers starting to become used even more in everyday business, Rose started to concentrate her time on the rental property she had. On her 75th birthday, her children threw her a surprise party. They invited people that worked for her at Estrada Realty, her family, and members of her ex-husband’s family. In fact, when people from her ex-husband’s family found out about it, they would call her son and asked if they could come. He told them to come and invited anyone from his dad’s side of the family who wanted to come. Rose was incredibly surprised to see how many people came to her birthday party. She was honored that the entire Estrada family showed up to wish her a Happy 75th birthday. One agent that worked for Rose came up and thanked her. She said that everything she had was because of Rose. Rose had taught her how to work hard, treat people with respect and do what you can to help people. She said Rose inspired her by watching her work hard and never giving up. Rose thanked God everyday for what she had. From the food that she ate to her health and how she was fortunate to never really have a major illness. She thanked God for her family… She had six children - Sylvia, Alice, Rosemary, Diane, Daniel and Cynthia. She had eight grandchildren - Kent, Brandie, Shylene, Jeffery, Angelica, Thomas, Monique and Alfred. 16 Great Grandchildren - Ixis, Brianne, Kent, Daniel, Bianca, Bella, Benicio, Jazmine, Jocelyn, Rosemary, David, Victor, Aalyah, Meylani, Adrian, Alina. And one Great, Great Grandchild – Lucas. Rose lost a daughter, Rosemary, to lung cancer in 2001. It was hard for her and took a toll on her. She told her son that she did not want to see another child die. That she wanted to go when she felt she could not do the things that she used to. She used to say that she would like to die in her sleep. A few weeks ago, she told her son that she did not want to die in her sleep, but she wanted to die with her son by her side. Once again, God blessed her with that special gift.

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