Tributes have been paid to one of the founders of King Edward VII Memorial Hospital's 'Pink Ladies', who received the OBE for her voluntary work.

Margaret Aileen Baldasaro, known in Bermuda as Aileen Purvey, passed away in her native Canada on Christmas Eve, aged 85.

Mrs. Baldasaro moved to Bermuda in the late 1940s and began work as a nurse at the hospital.

She quit nursing when she married her first husband, Bill Purvey, in 1949. Mr. Purvey was one of the founders of the company HWP, Holmes Williams Purvey.

Mrs. Baldasaro, a devout Roman Catholic, subsequently became director of volunteers at the hospital. She became an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for her work in 1976. That same year she received the Benemerenti Award from Pope John Paul for her work within St. Michael's Church, in Hamilton.

"She held the position of director of volunteers for many years and she was instrumental in getting the Pink Ladies developed," explained her son, Francis Purvey. "She would orchestrate all the activities. She was a very compassionate person. Every morning, even in the role of director, she would make sure she got in early and visited anyone she felt needed special attention, perhaps with the newspaper or whatever they might need."

Bill Purvey died in 1975. Mrs. Baldasaro was remarried, to the late Wallace J. Baldasaro, in 1976, and moved back to Canada.

Francis Purvey, who lives in Florida and has a sister, Jean Gerken, said an extraordinary number of people had paid their respects since his mother's death.

"Most of them say, 'I had no idea she had these awards or had these accomplishments' because she was a very humble person at the same time."

Dorothy Trimingham, former president of the Pink Ladies (known formally as the Hospital Auxiliary volunteers), worked with Mrs. Baldasaro for around ten years. She said: "She was a fabulous lady and she was a very great friend. She was a wonderful woman who started volunteering to train the volunteers. She was there day and night.

"We decided it was important for her to have a job that the hospital recognised as an official job, so we got her to be the first official person who was responsible for the volunteers. She set up the whole volunteer office from beginning to end and the junior department, the Candy Stripers.

"She started everything, and she really made the Pink Ladies a hugely important feature of the hospital. The hospital began to depend more and more on us because she knew what she was doing and managed to keep everyone in line without being rough with anybody. We all loved her, she was fabulous."