Sarah Josephine May Marshall, RN, departed this life on Thursday, November 29, 2012.
She is survived by her son, Thomas A. Marshall of Crozet; her sister, Minnie Lee May McGehee; her brother, John H. May and sister-in-law, Mary Beth Melton May, of Palmyra; and many nieces and nephews.
Her other siblings were the late Lieutenant Colonel James F. May Jr., Samuel S. May, and Mary Frances May Blodgett.
She was born on February 9, 1918, at Glen Wilton in Botetourt County, Virginia, to Sarah Jennie Garner May and James Franklin May Sr., and grew up in Fluvanna County, near Carysbrook. She married William A. “Bill” Marshall, United States Navy, in September 1946, and lived on Belmont’s Druid Avenue in Charlottesville from its development in 1947 until 2006.
Like her mother, she became a nurse. She entered training at Blue Ridge Sanatorium and earned her cap and diploma from the University of Virginia Hospital School of Nursing. She studied newborn special care in New York City from 1941 until 1942. From 1946 until 1950, she was an obstetric nurse at the University of Virginia Medical Center under Dr. W. Norman Thornton Jr. and Dr. John M. Nokes. She was Head Nurse on the Pediatrics Unit of the Martha Jefferson Hospital until her retirement in 1982. She held many offices in the Virginia Nurses Association and served as a delegate to three conventions of the American Nurses Association. Even after she retired, many friends and relatives relied upon her care. She loved to cook and regale her many friends and kinfolk. She was a passionate reader and lived a life of ever-expanding horizons. In retirement, her zest for travel took her to Spain, England, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. She lobbied relentlessly for the mentally ill and the aged.
Her life-long love of wildflowers and of gardening culminated in an embankment garden at Mountainside Senior Living in Crozet, which she transplanted there, along with herself. She rooted and potted plants to raise funds for the Jefferson Area Board of Aging.
In lieu of flowers, please contribute to Mountainside JABA, P.O. Box 310, Crozet 22932.
God’s Garden
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s Heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
– Dorothy Gurney
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