Rosalyn Sitrin Danner, a native of Utica and well beloved as a local high school Spanish teacher for many years, died peacefully Thursday morning, August 21, 2025 at her home in Boca Raton, Florida. She was 97.

Known as Rozie to her many friends, Rosalyn Danner lived in Utica for nearly seventy years. In 1950, she married prominent local dentist Robert Danner, who practiced from his office at Park Avenue and Grant Street for half a century. During their sixty-five-year marriage, the Danner raised four children, three of whom survive them. Robert Danner died in Florida in 2015.

Rosalyn Danner was the daughter of Samuel and Libby Sitrin. She was her father's fifth child, after four sons. All but one of her siblings were half-brothers.

Danner attended John F. Hughes School and Utica Free Academy, where she was graduated with honors, delivering the coveted Upson Oration. She became the first in her family to go to college when she attended Syracuse University. She was graduated from Syracuse, magna cum laude, with a degree in Spanish in 1949.

After meeting Robert Danner at the King Cole Ice Cream Shoppe – they were introduced by mutual friends – Rosalyn married him in June 1950 at Temple Beth-El on Genesee Street. After a honeymoon in Montreal, they moved to Philadelphia where Robert finished his dental studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He set up his practice in downtown Utica in 1951. The Danner's later bought a house on Ferris Avenue in South Utica and also owned a summer camp in Thendara in the Adirondacks.

They raised four children, three of whom, Hollis Tobey Danner O'Brien, 70, of Jackson, Wyoming, Mark David Danner, 66, of Berkeley, California, and Lisa Gail Danner, 63, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, survive them. Sheila Beth Danner died in New York in 1977. Rosalyn is also survived by three grandchildren, Sara Suggs, 37, of Santa Fe, Grace Beth Danner, 12, and Truman Leo Danner, 10, both of Berkeley, and two great grandchildren, Mateo Sanchez, 12, and Marcus Sanchez, 11, both of Albuquerque.

Rosalyn Danner worked as a substitute teacher in the Utica public school system until she began teaching Spanish at Utica Catholic Academy in 1970. She was a popular teacher there for two decades and took her students on several eventful trips to Spain which attained legendary status at the Catholic school.

Apart from Rosalyn's school chaperoning, the Danner's traveled widely, visiting Spain, France, Italy and Israel, among other destinations. (Fluent in Spanish, Rosalyn also spoke passable French.) They enjoyed skiing and golf and were longtime members of the Thendara Country Club and the Yahnundasis Golf Club.

For more than half a century they spent summers at their "camp" in Thendara, which Robert Danner built in the early 1960s with his brother Bill and his father William, a longtime plumber in Utica, and which was known colloquially as "Danner Manor". The family enjoyed swimming in the small lake and sunbathing on the dock.

Rosalyn Danner moved permanently with her husband to Boca Raton, Florida, in 1998. She was a passionate reader and enjoyed listening to music, especially show tunes. She had been an accomplished amateur singer and appeared in many local musicals and shows during her early years in Utica. Though she lived in Florida for many years, she continued to visit Utica until recently and kept in touch with her many friends there.

Services will be held for Rosalyn Danner at 11 am on Wednesday, August 27, at the Mark C. Bentz Funeral Service, Inc., 13 Oxford Road, New Hartford. A calling hour will precede the service from 10-11 AM.  She will be laid to rest beside her husband afterward at the Tifereth Zvi Cemetery on Wood Road in Whitesboro.