Rose was born  in Fishers Cove on the Southwest Arm of Trinity, on   February 24th,  1900,. the ninth  child of  John Hoskins and Margaret Kelly.. Her father died when she was 15 and after completing school she became a teacher like her mother and two sisters before her.

    Rose taught in a number of locations  including Spillars Cove, Summerville, Sweet Bay, Whitbourne, Fortune Harbour, Little Bay Islands  and Catalnia before leaving for the United States in 1927 where she joined  two  sisters and one brother who were living in New York.

    Rose returned to Newfoundland in 1929 to help her aged mother care for her three incapicated  siblings.  In 1930 she married William Sullivan, a first World War veteran whom she had known  since she was twelve years old, when he came to Trinity to work at Ryan Brothers, and boarded with her family.

  Over the next thirty years, during which time her mother and siblings died, and she  raised her own family, Rose  wrote at least twenty five poems about life and events in Trinity.  Just as her last child finished school and left home, and it looked as if she would finally have some time to enjoy life she was  diaganoized with cancer in 1960.   For the next four years she fought a valiant battle with the disease until she passed away on 17 March 1964.

    Her grandson, Michael has collected the hand written copies of her poems and is working on them in the hope that the family will be successful in having them  published in her memory.  Her  keen sense of humor,  an appreciation of nature, and a love of Trinity are reflected in her poems.