Masha, that's so nice of you looking out for your sister-in-law! What I'd suggest is that she first figure out a few things:
1. What she wants the rose for (Is she wanting something she can cut? Is she wanting something that smells divine? Does she want something to look pretty in the yard? Is she willing to spray? How much time is she willing to invest? Is she willing to give up a any or a lot of rebloom if it means an easier-to-care-for rose? I'd rank these in order of priority).
2. What are her conditions? How much sun/part sun does she get and is the sun in the area where she wants to grow roses?
3. How much room does she have? Some classes of roses (Albas in particular) can take up a lot of room...
4. Any particular color she likes? If she's not a fan of pink, deep pink, crimson pink, purple-y/pink-red or white (and a yellow and apricot here or there), or if she has a particular color scheme firmly in mind (like true red and golden yellow), then OGRs just aren't going to work for her.
5. Start trolling through some OGR Web sites with pictures and descriptions (Antique Rose Emporium, Rouge Valley, Paul Barden's Old Garden Roses and Beyond and of course, Vintage are some good ones I'd suggest) to see what catches her fancy. Getting her comfortable with the rose vendors online is especially important because of #7.
6. Narrow down the field... I'd start her off at hardy to zone 5, maybe even zone 4, just to be on the safe side. Since she's new at this, you definitely want to make sure that what she gets survives (even if she doesn't get it all right) so she can feel accomplished and have a good association with growing roses. A little confidence goes a long way.
7. We just lost the only vendor of old roses in our area, Great Lakes Roses. You can sometimes find a nursery that sells Zepherine Drouhin or Sombreuil (Bordine's -- there's one in Brighton, which is pretty close to her). But OGRs just aren't sold around here.
One of the nurseries I frequent, Telly's in Troy (about an hour's drive from her -- nice nursery, with lots of things that are harder to find) sold Dainty Bess and Golden Wings this year. Not OGRs, but older varieties. The rose lady said she ordered 10 of each, from Pickering. That's all. She said that she'd ordered a couple of OGRs in the past, but they ended up in the clearance corner because people don't want them. (In fact, I bought another Dainty Bess last weekend from the clearance corner, so who knows if she'll even order more of that one next season.)
There are places around with larger rose selections, but by and large, they're newer HTs and floribundas, with a few minis, some tried and true older HTs (Peace, Mr. Lincoln) and maybe, if they're adventurous, a few Austins thrown in.
I may be missing a place -- and if I am, someone please pipe in to say -- but I live in Detroit (about 45 minutes from Ann Arbor), am often in the metro suburbs and go as far as Lansing (about an hour and a half away) for plants. the only place I found for OGRs was Great Lakes Roses. The couple of farmers markets that sold old roses got them from GLR. And now they're gone. So shopping locally isn't going to be an option.
Q
Rose planning suggestions
Q