Mary Suzanne Pauli Eves

Mary Suzanne Pauli Eves was born on February 13, 1929 to Wisconsin dairy farmers Kathryn Zentner and Fred Pauli. She remembered a childhood of a closely knit, hard-working family that participated in community activities at the two-room rural graded school and the Zwingli United Church of Christ both within walking distance from the farm. Along with her two brothers and, later, a sister, she learned the value of a job done well and acting with integrity and forthrightness. She attended Verona High School and then made her way to the School of Nursing at Madison General Hospital not really knowing what nursing was all about. Madison General was the source of her life-time commitment to hospital nursing learned, as she recalled, under the leadership of some dedicated and exacting women. As part of her training she spent a six-month practical assignment at Cook County Hospital on the south side of Chicago. There the farm girl was introduced to urban life with all its complexities as well as the cultural life of a big city. She attended the symphony and ballet and fell in love with Swan Lake.

She was animated by the demanding hustle of hospital nursing, proud to wear her white cap and starched uniform as she managed bed-side nursing with care and intelligence and a firm hand. "I don't do OB" she said in an interview at a small Wisconsin hospital. Eventually they took her at her word.

She came to Watsonville in 1955 with her then husband. She immediately took a position at "the old hospital" on Montecito Avenue and practiced nursing through the move to the Green Valley Road location before retiring in the late 1990s. In the later years of her nursing career she combined international travel with completing continuing education credits. In retirement she continued her love of travel-China, Turkey, Russia, Africa. It was, however, her trips to Switzerland that were most memorable. There she met the relatives, the mountains, and the villages that her grandparents knew and that she had heard about as a child.

While working full-time she enrolled at Cabrillo College and earned her A.A. degree enjoying the opportunity to study the arts and history along-side the business courses in her program.

Though nursing was foremost in her life, she was also an able and dedicated contributor to the Watsonville community through the United Methodist Church, through the "Y" where she played a large role in the thrift shop, through the Rodgers House where she led visitor tours. PTO membership was also important to her.

Her home was always a welcoming place, a place of great pride on Kelly Lake. She was deliberate about every detail, the artifacts from her travels, her family mementos, and her well-manicured gardens. She enjoyed sharing a glass of wine in this environment that so clearly expressed her creativity and hard work, proud of the place she had made in the world.

She is predeceased by her parents, her brother Donald Pauli, her brother Robert Pauli, and her brother-in-law James Whitaker. She is survived by her sister Faye Whitaker and sisters-in-law Marie Pauli and Mary Pauli, thirteen nieces and nephews and notably her dear friends in Watsonville who have extended loving care not only in recent times of need, but throughout her life in California. Among them should be noted Sue and John King who lived next door and looked out for her daily especially in the last ten years. Her nurse friends, who visited every Friday afternoon for a promised glass of wine, brought news of the world she no longer could participate in. Lastly, the caregivers from Safe at Home attended to her needs and then some. She probably never thought of saying a final thank you to those folks, but here it is in the summary of a pretty remarkable life.

Memorial contributions in Mary's name might be addressed to: The Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds Foundation, Rodgers House, 2601 East Lake Avenue, Watsonville, CA 95076.

Published in The Pajaronian · July 30, 2024