Joanne Doris Rogé

Joanne Doris Rogé was gifted at many things. She was a chef, an artist who liked to draw and paint and once ran a silkscreen company in Montauk, and a self-taught musician, who made her children laugh with stories about her school years when she sometimes cut classes and went to the Bronx Zoo to play her guitar.

But most of all, according to Ms. Rogé’s daughter Jaclyn Rogé, she was devoted to her seven grandchildren and excited about a baby girl on the way. “All she cared about was her grandkids,” Jaclyn said Tuesday.

Ms. Rogé, who was 66, died in her sleep at home in Montauk on Friday. The cause of death was undetermined, pending results of an autopsy. 

Ms. Rogé was born on April 29, 1952, in Yonkers to Harrison Nye and the former Doris Stewart. She grew up on City Island in the Bronx, not far from the Stepping Stones Light, which sits off the southern tip of the island and marks the main shipping channel into New York. The family plans to spread Ms. Rogé’s ashes there.

Ms. Rogé moved to Montauk in 1980. A service for her will be held today at 2 p.m. at the Montauk Community Church, with the Revs. Bill Hoffmann and David Jolly officiating.

Ms. Rogé helped her husband, George Gallaway, whom she married on Dec. 15, 1996, at the Sail Inn, his Montauk restaurant, bar, and motel, on West Lake Drive.

Asked what her mother did there, Jaclyn Rogé chuckled and said something consistent with her many interests: “She did a little of everything.”

In addition to her husband and her daughter Jaclyn Rogé, who lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and her grandchildren, Ms. Rogé is survived by two other children, Linda Rogé of Rochester, and Michael Ritsi of Montauk. Also surviving are a sister, Diana Murphy of Montauk, and two brothers, Bill Nye and Tom Nye of City Island, N.Y.