Seraphim Rose - Early Life

Early Life

Eugene Rose was born on August 13, 1934, in San Diego, California. His father, Frank Rose, was a World War I veteran who operated the city's first "Karmel Korn Shop" together with his wife Esther Rose, Eugene's mother. In addition to being a businesswoman, Esther was a California artist who specialized in impressionist renderings of Pacific coast scenes. Raised in San Diego, Eugene would remain a Californian the rest of his life. His older sister was Eileen Rose Busby, an author, MENSA member, and antiques expert; his older brother was Frank Rose, a local businessman. Rose was also an uncle of scientist and author J. Michael Scott, true crime author and journalist Cathy Scott, and Cordelia Mendoza, antiques expert and author.

Though Rose was described by one biographer as a "natural athlete" in his youth, he did not engage seriously in sport. Baptized in the Methodist Church when he was 14 years old, Rose later rejected Christianity for atheism. After graduating from San Diego High School, he attended Pomona College where he studied Chinese philosophy and graduated magna cum laude in 1956. While at Pomona, he was a reader for Ved Mehta, a blind student who would go on to become a well known author. Mehta referred to Rose in two books, one of which was a book of memoirs called Stolen Light: “I felt very lucky to have found Gene as a reader. ... He read with such clarity that I almost had the illusion that he was explaining things.” Afterward, Rose studied under Alan Watts at the American Academy of Asian Studies before entering the master's degree program in Oriental languages at the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated in 1961 with a thesis entitled "'Emptiness' and 'Fullness' in the Lao Tzu".

In addition to a gift for languages, Rose was known for possessing an acute sense of humor and wit. He enjoyed opera, concerts, art, literature, and the other cultural opportunities richly available in San Francisco, where he settled after his graduation and explored Buddhism and other Asian philosophies.

In 1956, Rose came out as a homosexual to a close friend from college after his mother had discovered letters between him and Walter Pomeroy, Rose's friend from high school. Rose ceased his homosexual activities after he accepted Orthodoxy, eventually ending a relationship with Jon Gregerson, a Californian of Finnish ancestry whom Rose had met in 1955 while attending Watts' academy, and who had become Rose's partner.