By Chris Mayhew
Enquirer staff writer

SOUTHGATE - Mary V. Enzweiler, a retired registered nurse who ran a bustling household with eight children, died Wednesday at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Edgewood. She was 76.

"There were two parts of my mother's life," said her third child, the Rev. Donald Enzweiler of Cold Spring. "One part would be the nursing, another part would be her family."

Mrs. Enzweiler graduated from the nursing school at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, and went to work for St. Luke Hospital in Fort Thomas, her son said.

She had her first child in 1954, and continued to work as a nurse until she had several children, her son said.

"She was always there," her son said. "You would come home from school for lunch, and she would have lunch fixed."

The Rev. Enzweiler said almost all her children were close to a year apart in age.

"I always asked, 'How did you take care of all of us?' She said: 'You took care of yourselves. The older ones looked out for each other, and I watched the littlest.' "

She spent any extra time she had retaining her nursing certification and reading nursing books, her son said.

After her youngest child reached school age, she returned to work at St. Luke as a part-time nurse.

"She was unpretentious," her son said. "She was simple in her needs, and simple in her wants."

With her nursing background, it wasn't uncommon for neighbors to come knocking on the door for help, and she sometimes cared for elderly neighbors if they were too weak to help themselves after a hospitalization.

"Whenever someone was hurt or sick or ailing, they would come and get Mom," her son said.

Mrs. Enzweiler lived with her husband in the same Southgate house for 50 years. Her husband for 51 years, Walter J. Enzweiler, died in July.

A son, Thomas, died in 1963.

Other survivors include five sons, Robert of Leesburg, Va., John of Moorpark, Calif., Paul of Cold Spring, David of Newport and James of Southgate; two daughters, Mary Ann Schuman of Southgate and Lisa Marie Hardesty of Mount Washington; three brothers, the Rev. Robert Velten of St. Leo, Fla., and Richard and Donald Velten, both of Cold Spring; a sister, Rose Ann Gingerich of Bloomington, Mich.; and eight grandchildren.

Visitation will be 4:30-8 p.m. today at Muehlenkamp-Erschell Funeral Home, 427 S. Fort Thomas Ave., Fort Thomas. Mass of Christian burial will be 10 a.m. Monday at St. Therese Church, 11 Temple Place, Southgate. Burial will be in St. Stephen Cemetery in Fort Thomas.

Memorials: Mary Rose Mission, 1543 Russell St., Covington, KY 41011-3358; or the Father Ralph Beiting St. Jude Mission, Route 5, Box 1083, Louisa, KY 41230.

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E-mail cmayhew@enquirer.com