Gerard Lawrence Rothwell (Jerry), 80

May 11, 2022

Gerard L. Rothwell, 80, passed away at Maple Farm nursing facility, his home for the
past 5 years. He was the son of Thomas and Vera McGovern Rothwell. Jerry was a
beloved figure to his many friends and relatives. His interesting stories and pleasant
personality will be missed.

After graduating from Lancaster Catholic High School in 1960, Jerry pursued both a B.S. and an M.S. in Education from Millersville University. He spent 31 years as an elementary classroom teacher in Lancaster city school district, retiring in 1995. He also studied theater for four years at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and for one year at the Herbert Berghof Studio, In New York City.

As an international tour escort, Jerry spent 25 summers working for different travel
agencies in New York City, including AARP, Grand Circle Travel and Better Homes and Gardens tours. His travel experiences have taken him around the world over 125 times. He conducted tours to every continent, including Antarctica. Although he specialized in European travel, Jerry also conducted three safaris to Africa as well as trips to the Amazon jungle, Galapagos, India and the Himalayan mountains.

Jerry worked as a tour escort in Moscow during the Cold War, conducted tours from
Moscow to India and back and visited China twice, traveling to the Great Wall, Beijing, Shanghai and the great pottery army at Xian. He once left Beijing by train to visit both Inner and Outer Mongolia and its capital, Ulan Bator. From there he crossed Russia by train on the trans Siberian railroad to Moscow.

In his travels, Jerry viewed the body of Vladimir Lenin and saw Mao Tse Tung twice. In 1989 he was present during an assassination attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in the Papal audience hall in Rome. In the following week, he was able to shake the hand of that Pope.

During one of his three trips to Antarctica, Jerry spent 31 days at sea on a Russian supply ship out of New Zealand, to travel to the Ross Ice Shelf and Mc Murdo Station. He has also visited relatives in New Zealand and Australia on three separate occasions.

Jerry has always been interested in theater and was well known among all the theater groups of Lancaster. He appeared in 51 different productions at the Fulton Theatre, beginning in 1958, singing in 18 of the 22 Kiwanis Musicals that were held there.

His other theater experiences include the Dutch Apple Dinner Theater, (with an appearance at the Broadway Palm in Ft. Myers, Florida), the Rainbow Dinner Theater, Freedom Chapel Dinner Theater, Ephrata Playhouse, Genesius Theater in Reading and First Stage Theater in Lititz.

At the time of his death, Jerry had seen over 3400 stage productions in New York City, London and various other cities around the world. In his life, he shook the hand of nearly every major celebrity of the last century, including Buster Keaton, Lawrence Olivier, Lillian Gish, Richard Rodgers, Mary Martin and Helen Hayes. His comprehensive theater collection consists of thousands of autographs and memorabilia from the New York and London Stage. This collection has been donated to the special library at Millersville University. He donated the Lancaster part of the theater collection to the
Lancaster Historical Society. Jerry was as diligent in pursuing autographs of local actors as he had been in seeking those of Broadway performers. To him, the theater was a magic world of artistry and illusion, and he never lost his fascination for it. He had a powerful singing voice and loved nothing better than standing on a stage and sharing that with the world.

Jerry was preceded in death by an older brother, Thomas Rothwell, of Elizabethtown. He is survived by many cousins and his good friend, Dianne Danz, with whom he had been in constant contact from the time she paid him $2.00 a week to share a ride to Millersville University in the mid sixties to the present day. Jerry’s favorite way of describing their friendship was to claim, “We were together when Kennedy was shot.”

Jerry always claimed that he’d had a wonderful life and was grateful for his travel, teaching and theater opportunities, as well as for the support of the many friends he made all over the world. He was very happy to have found his wonderful cousins in New Zealand and thankful that they kept in touch, despite the distance between them.

Jerry Rothwell was truly a unique character, and nobody who met him could ever forget him.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held Wednesday May 18, 2022 at 11am at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, 501 E. Orange St., Lancaster, PA 17602 with a viewing one hour prior. Interment will be held at St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery.