Having a baby in the midst of a global pandemic isn’t usually among new parents’ plans, but for a Fairfield couple who met as students at Southern in 2006, bringing their new daughter into the world during a time of crisis is a sign of hope.
A Connecticut Post article, “At a time of fear and anxiety, baby Cecilia brings Hope” (Jeff Jacobs, April 7, 2020), recounts the story of Cecilia Hope Rosa, who was born April 2 to Maureen Mazzone, ’10, and her husband, Dan Rosa, ’10, who met at Southern when she was a sophomore and he was a freshman. They married in 2016 and settled in Fairfield, and Maureen is now an eighth-grade teacher at Fairfield Woods Middle School and Dan is the vice president of Rosa Carpentry, working as a carpenter and business manager. Tragically, Maureen’s father, Gary Mazzone, was among the seven killed when the B-17 Flying Fortress crashed at Bradley International Airport in October 2019.
The Rosas were expecting their first child to be born in mid-April, but baby Cecilia had other ideas: Maureen went into labor on the morning of April 2, and later that day, after she and Dan had made it to Norwalk Hospital, had their temperatures taken at the entrance, and donned face masks, Cecilia Hope came into the world, weighing in at 6 pounds.
