Marie A. Lyons, 87, who oversaw the emergency room nursing staff of St. Elizabeth Hospital in the 1970s, died Sunday, Dec. 29, at a hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz. Mrs. Lyons, a Chicago native who trained for nursing in the 1930s at St. Elizabeth, also was a registered nurse at St. Joseph Hospital, Edgewater Hospital and Chicago Board of Health in her more than 45-year nursing career. “She was a very caring person,” said her son Thomas Jr. “They put her in charge because she was able to keep her head under fire.” Outside the hospital, Mrs. Lyons was a voracious reader and loved to travel, her son said. She and her husband, Thomas, who died in 1990, would keep their passports handy and jump on a plane at a moment’s notice, her son said. In recent years, Mrs. Lyons divided her time between her winter home in Arizona and a condominium in Norwood Park, where she was a member of the Norwood Park Women’s Club. Besides her son, survivors include a daughter, Anna Marie Ogle; another son, Edward; a brother, Edward Cahill; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. A service will be held at 9:30 a.m. Friday in Colonial-Wojciechowski Funeral Home, 6250 N. Milwaukee Ave.
