Rita B. Sullivan, 84.

• Position: OBITUARIES

SHREWSBURY - Rita Bielaczek Sullivan, 84, of Southgate in Shrewsbury, died Thursday, November 15, 2012 at the UMass-Memorial Medical Center after a brief illness.

Her husband of 26 years, Dr. Cornelius J.P. Sullivan, died in 1996.

Rita was born in village of Tworkow, which was then part of Germany and is now in Poland. Her parents were the late Ludwik and Viktoria Bielaczek. After completing nursing school in Hamburg, Germany, she moved in 1953 to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to begin her nursing career. In 1963, she moved to the New York City area to take a position as a nurse at Misericordia Hospital in the Bronx.

Rita and her husband later moved to Wichita, Kansas where they lived for ten years. After Dr. Sullivan retired from medical practice, they returned to live in Fishkill, New York. She moved to Shrewsbury in 2009.

Rita enjoyed classical music, literature and art.

Rita leaves five stepchildren, William F. Sullivan of Worcester, Dr. Cornelius Sullivan of Tuscaloosa, Ala., Loretta Lobes of Pittsburgh...