Nurse devoted to Chestnut Hill

Anne Hutchins Rivinus, 94, of Chestnut Hill, a pediatric nurse, mother of seven, and community activist, died Tuesday, Sept. 28, at home.

Mrs. Rivinus grew up in the suburbs of Boston and remained fiercely proud of her Yankee heritage. She graduated from Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Va.

Back in Boston, she met her future husband, Francis Markoe "Koey" Rivinus, a student at Harvard University. They married in 1938 and moved to Philadelphia, his hometown.

When her youngest child was 12 and she was 50, Mrs. Rivinus enrolled in the Chestnut Hill Hospital School of Nursing. After graduating, she was head nurse for the Chestnut Hill Pediatric Group for 25 years.

As a young mother, she pushed baby carriages and walked children and dogs through Chestnut Hill and later commuted to work by bicycle, her daughter Mary Madeira said. The family home on Rex Avenue was a playground for neighborhood kids, and Mrs. Rivinus planted extensive flower and berry gardens there.

She was a member of the Weeders Garden Club and helped assemble the club's entries for the Philadelphia Flower Show.

As members of the Friends of the Wissahickon, Mrs. Rivinus and her husband planted rhododendrons and mountain laurels, picked up trash, and removed graffiti in Fairmount Park along the creek. In 2004, the couple received the Wissahickon Achievement Award, and the water garden in front of Valley Green Inn was dedicated in their names.

After she and her husband moved to an apartment in Chestnut Hill with no land to cultivate, Mrs. Rivinus planted a perennial garden on a patch of ground adjacent to the SEPTA train station.

Mrs. Rivinus was active with St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill as an acolyte and volunteered at fund-raising events. For the last 15 years, she was a lay minister with the church and organized a weekly service at the chapel at the Springfield Residence for seniors in Wyndmoor. In 2008, the Neighborhood Interfaith Movement in Philadelphia honored her for her outreach ministry.

Mrs. Rivinus rode her bike around Chestnut Hill until she was 88 and was an active walker until 92.

Two days before her death, her son Mark pushed her in a wheelchair up to Germantown Avenue, where neighbors greeted her. Sitting in the sun, eating watermelon water ice, she remarked, "I love living in a town where I know so many people."

In addition to her daughter and son, Mrs. Rivinus is survived by another son, Timothy; daughters Sarah Caslon and Susanna Ribault; 14 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 2006. Son Michael died in 1973 and daughter Judith Fuller in 2008.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 23, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 22 E. Chestnut Hill Ave.