Next to her role as a wife and mother, there was nothing Anna L. Spiese enjoyed more than being a surgical nurse.
Friends said her face lit up whenever she spoke of her children or her work in the operating room.
“She was a lovely lady with a very happy life, both at home and in the hospital,” said Dolores Pieper, former assistant director of nursing at Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park. “She was loved and respected by everyone.”
Mrs. Spiese, 77, of Bellwood and a retired surgical nursing supervisor at Westlake and former member of the Army Nurse Corps, died of pulmonary failure Wednesday, Aug. 4, in her home.
She was born in Chicago and had fond memories of growing up one of five children in the Little Italy neighborhood on the West Side.
“It wasn’t an easy childhood; in fact, her family was quite poor. But she was happy and well taken-care-of,” said her daughter, Joanne. “She was raised by her mother after her father died when she was just 3.”
After high school, Mrs. Spiese attended Oak Park Hospital School of Nursing, where she received an associate’s degree in surgical nursing. She joined the Army Nurse Corps, where she was a first lieutenant at Ft. Knox in Kentucky. At Ft. Knox, she met Melvin Spiese, a captain in the Army.
“He was one of her patients, a soldier with a badly pulled knee, who became laid up for a few weeks,” her daughter said. “They dated about six months before they were married.”
Her husband, who would have a 30-year career in the military, died in 1990.
After her discharge, Mrs. Spiese and her husband lived for a few years on a military base in Germany, where they began raising a family.
“It was an interesting time for them, living in Germany after World War II, when all the reconstruction was going on,” her daughter said.
After returning to the U.S. in the early 1950s, Mrs. Spiese settled with her family in Melrose Park and later in Bellwood. She worked in the surgical units of three Chicago-area hospitals before joining the surgical nursing staff at Westlake. She worked there for more than 20 years.
“Even when she became a supervisor, she didn’t just run things from her office,” her daughter said. “She scrubbed in and helped out nearly every day she was there.”
Mrs. Spiese also was a mentor to many young nurses and technicians.
“She was always encouraging them to further their education,” her daughter said. “She’d help them juggle their work schedules so that they could go back to school.”
Other survivors include a son, Melvin; two sisters, Sylvia Virnich and Nancy Steiner; and four grandchildren.
Services will be held at 10 a.m. Monday in Hursen Funeral Home, 4001 Roosevelt Road, Hillside.
