OBITUARY: Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, PA) - 29 June 2004 - Adele F. Marsico, a registered nurse from Aspinwall who worked with Dr. Jonas Salk, one of the creators of the polio vaccine, died Sunday of heart failure. She was 93. - Ms. Marsico grew up in Sharpsburg and attended Linden Elementary School. - At Sharpsburg High School, she discovered her passion for nursing after hearing about the heroism displayed by the Red Cross nurses during World War I. - After graduating from Sharpsburg High in 1930, she attended St. Francis Hospital Nurse Training School, where she graduated in 1933 with a nursing certificate. - Ms. Marsico then went to work for the Pennsylvania Department of Health. - After spending at semester at Duquesne University, she transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She left Penn after a semester, returned to Pittsburgh and went to work at Leech Farm Tuberculosis Hospital. - In the evenings, Ms. Marsico continued taking nursing courses at Duquesne, eventually completing her degree. - In 1944, Ms. Marsico moved to Richmond, Ind., to become the director of nursing at Reid Memorial Hospital. - But in 1950, she returned to Pittsburgh to care for her younger siblings following the death of their mother, Lucia. - For the next decade, Ms. Marsico worked at the Municipal Hospital, a city run facility built in 1941 to serve patients with infectious diseases. - It was at Municipal Hospital that Ms. Marsico met and worked with Dr. Jesse Wright who is credited with creating the rocking bed. The bed was developed to assist patients in the early stages of polio. - Later, she worked with Salk at Municipal Hospital. - In the 1960s, Ms. Marsico continued training other nurses in the discipline and methods of public health. She organized and ran clinics for treating venereal diseases and high blood pressure. - In her retirement, she ran a flu-shot clinic in Aspinwall and was involved in getting the Foxwall Ambulance Service in her area. - "She was a person you would aspire to be like," said Ms. Marsico's niece, Adele Davis, of Robinson. "She was a powerful woman and a strong force in my life." - Ms. Marsico was the first and only female president of the American Association of Retired Persons chapter of Fox Chapel and, in 1990, received the Athena Award for meritorious service. - Ms. Marsico, who never married, is survived by 17 nieces and nephews. - Visitation will be from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at Weddell-Ajak Funeral Home, 100 Center Avenue, Aspinwall. - A Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Thursday in St. Scholastica Church, 309 Brilliant Ave., Aspinwall. - Burial will be in Allegheny County Memorial Park, McCandless.

OBITUARY: Adele F. Marsico, RN, Age 93, of Aspinwall, peacefully on Sunday, June 27, 2004; beloved sister of the late Philomena Chiavone, Clara Nicotera, George A. Marsico, Vera M. Pasquarelli and Dolores M. Esposito; survived by many nieces and nephews. Adele was a retired supervisor with the Allegheny County Health Department and a graduate of Duquesne University.......

Adele's sister, Dolores Marsico, graduated in the St. Francis Class of 1944.

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