Joanne: The Wife of Mr. Rogers 143

“It’s been confusing for me,” she said. “I’ve been frightened. I have had trouble dealing with the fact that this happened, I don’t want to give credit to the fact that it happened.”

She said she “was facing difficulty wrapping her head around the shooting,” according to Time Magazine.

It literally happened in their neighborhood.

For years, it was her husband’s words that calmed her, like it has calmed many others, encouraging love, hope, and kindness.

So, when she was asked her thoughts of the shooting, she did what her husband would do, offer “words of hope and love.”

She and her husband were married for more than 50 years. They met in college, they loved dancing, they loved music. After she headed to another college to study music, they continued writing letters to one another. In one of the letters, he proposed. She called him on a payphone and said, “yes”.

“The pair wed in 1952 and remained together until his death at age 74,” according to writer Tim Balk.

The couple shared a code - it was the number 143. It stood for the number of letters in the words “I love you.”

Her late husband was known for his reassuring words during times of grief and sadness.

Whenever anything bad happens, his quote usually pops up on social media:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

After her husband’s death in 2003, Joanne Rogers continued to work to preserve the legacy of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and spread her husband’s message of kindness, according to the New York Times.

When 11 people were killed in a shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, she reassured a crowd packed into the Rodel Shalom Congregation in Pittsburgh, saying, “I want to tell you how wonderful you are. How beautiful you are. I love you.”

This is a part of a continuing series on the Peace Page for Women’s History Month. The Peace Page has shared many stories about Mister (Fred) Rogers. This one is about his other half, Mrs. Rogers.

“Sara Joanne Byrd was born in Jacksonville, Fla., on March 9, 1928, 11 days before her future husband [born March 20, 1928],” according to Richard Sandomir of The New York Times. “Her father, Wyatt Adolphus Byrd, was a traveling coffee salesman who later worked for the Post Office. Her mother, Ebra (Edwards) Byrd, was a homemaker who shared with her daughter her love of music; she played ragtime on the piano by ear. Joanne began taking piano lessons at age 5.”

She long accepted that she would “forever be known as the wife of Fred Rogers,” according to writer Steve Paget.

“John Sinclair, a friend of the couple, perhaps summed it up best when he told The Baltimore Sun that Joanne ‘is a person who has lived in the wings and done it so graciously.’ But that’s not all. ‘She is not only incredibly supportive of Fred, she is very much a person in her own right. She is as unique as Fred is – they’re a formidable pair,’ Sinclair added.”

“Despite being married to Fred Rogers for more than 50 years, there was much more to Joanne Roger’s life beyond being the wife of a beloved children’s television icon,” wrote Richard Cook of Pittsburgh Magazine. “Joanne Rogers . . . was a professional pianist, teacher and constant crusader for her late husband’s message of empathy, kindness and compassion."

They both shared many of those same values and respect for others despite differences, which she continued to champion after his death.

She did admit, however, that her husband had a little more patience, such as the time when she complained about “a garage mechanic, who didn’t have much respect for a woman.”

“I’d say, ‘Uggggh.’ And he’d say, ‘You never know what was going on in his life earlier.’”

“Joanne also shared the opinion that the couple, despite their fame, should live a relatively frugal life,” according to Paget. “Rogers never sought to commercialize his famous show or himself, and the couple were known to only drive second-hand cars and even pepper their home with furniture that wasn’t new. It was just another element in which the pair were in agreement.”

“Mrs. Rogers was a supportive force behind her husband, who, starting in 1968, welcomed children into his television neighborhood, where he gently sought to lift their self-esteem and taught them to cope with real-world situations like divorce, racism, death and war,” wrote Sandomir. “The program ended production in 2001.

“Mrs. Rogers appeared a few times on ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,’ but she became a much more public presence [after he passed away]. She vigorously promoted ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ (2018), Morgan Neville’s documentary about her husband, and ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’ (2019), a feature film with Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers and Maryann Plunkett as Mrs. Rogers.”

She wanted to nurture the memory and legacy of her husband.

“After Fred Rogers’ death, Joanne Rogers helped develop the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at St. Vincent College in his hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

She eventually “became a star in her own right,” wrote Cook. “She appeared on news programs and late-night talk shows in support of books and documentaries about Fred Rogers and his program, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” In an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” Rogers discussed her husband’s well-remembered use of a kiddie pool on his show to address issues of racism.”

When she was asked about the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue which killed 11 people, she initially said, “When you get to be 92, there’s not much you can do,” but, when she was told “we just want your heart in it”, she quickly replied, “Great. It’s there.”

She not only put her heart in it, she also joined the fundraising team with Tom Hanks.

And, when it was her turn to speak, she said, “Let us replace guns with hugs.”

“Those six words drew one of the biggest crowd reactions of the day,” according to the Incline.

Her empathy and kindness reminded many of her husband.

When attacks of September 11, 2001 took place, Fred “Rogers had finished filming his final shows, but he taped a public service announcement for parents and caregivers—’those of you who grew up with us’—asking them to protect a new generation of children. ‘I’m so grateful to you for helping the children in your life to know that you’ll do everything you can to keep them safe and to help them express their feelings in ways that will bring healing in many different neighborhoods,’” according to the Smithsonian.

Even after his passing, his words could still be heard.

“After the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School . . . after the Florida International University bridge collapse, after the Austin bombings, after each tragedy, Mister Rogers reappears as a social media meme,” wrote the Smithsonian. “In countless Twitter and Facebook posts, a sentiment Rogers first voiced to make John Lennon’s death in 1980 less scary is superimposed over an image of the man with a saintly smile and a cardigan: ‘When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

Joanne Rogers was a helper, too.

Friends say that Joanne was generous with her attention and time, wrote Paget.

“She remembers the things in your life, and she remembers the things you’re worried about and she calls to see how things are going,” a pal, Rita Bornstein, told The Baltimore Sun. “Mister Rogers” may well have been famed for his empathy and kindness, but it seems his wife is every bit as warm-hearted. The couple were peas in a pod.”

Writer Aude Soichet remembers interviewing Joanne Rogers for an ABC News Nightline special, whose premise was “In this era of hate speech and division, do we need Mr. Rogers now more than ever?”

Soichet became friends with Rogers. She remembers the last time she spoke with her, before Rogers passed away.

She wrote:

“We talked about her health, her grandchildren, my children and a lot about politics. I can struggle with being in the present moment, but that day during our conversation, I was so grateful to her for infusing her sunshine, levity and optimism into my second day of 2021, and told her if this was how the new year was kicking off, it could be a much brighter one.”

She wrote after the conversation with her friend:

“My kids know of Mr. Rogers' show and of Mrs. Rogers, and tonight at dinner I shared with them that Joanne had died. My 5-year-old daughter asked, "what happens to people when they die, do they become a star in the sky?"

“When you were lucky enough to be in Joanne's orbit here on earth, Joanne shone, for sure. But tonight I think there is a star up there shining brighter, and to her, I say, thank you.”