 In 1930 Rouse, lost his father to bladder cancer, his mother to heart failure, and his childhood home to bank foreclosure.His brother Bill paid for him attend the private preparatory Tome School in Port Deposit, Maryland, for a year.Facing money problems and unable to continue at the Tome School, the Rouse family sought a way for him to attend college by appealing to his oldest sister, who had married a United States Navy officer stationed in Hawaii.