In reflecting on his success in the furniture trade in Eastern North Carolina, Travis Rose once compared himself to a bee that discovered it could fly despite its paper-thin wings.
“I wanted to fly, but I didn t know I could,” he told a Daily News reporter for a story on his company s 50th anniversary in 2003. I guess I finally got my wings.
Rose went from a young furniture salesman right out of the Navy to become the patriarch of Rose Brothers Furniture, a Jacksonville-based retail giant with stores scattered across Eastern North Carolina.
He died Feb. 18 at age 91 after recently suffering a stroke. A graveside service is scheduled at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Onslow Memorial Park.