Rosalie Evelyn (Leill) Nuckols, 82, passed away on March 11, 2021. Rosalie, her husband and children, moved to Tempe in 1974. Rosalie used her exceptional musical talent as a pianist and organist to play for dozens of weddings and funerals and served as church organist at Tempe Nazarene Church for many years for which she received a Distinguished Service Award in 2005. She worked as a secretary at Carr Mortuary and at ASU’s School of Music from where she retired in 1990.



Rosalie learned to play the piano at a young age and was thrilled to get to go backstage to meet her musical inspiration, Liberace, when he performed a concert at Phoenix Symphony Hall in the early 1980s.



Rosalie was struck with polio in 1944 at the age of 6 and endured many surgeries and struggles over the years. She showed incredible strength and fortitude in dealing with her disability and was always coming up with creative adaptions so she could be as independent as possible as she never wanted to be seen as different from anyone else.



Along with her husband, Ed, she is survived by two children, three grandchildren and two sisters.

She is preceded in death by three siblings.



Visitation will be held 10-11am Thursday, March 18, 2021 at Hippensteel Funeral Home, Lafayette, IN. Service will be held at 11am Thursday at the funeral home. Interment will follow at Tippecanoe Memory Gardens in West Lafayette, IN. Current Covid-19 precautions will be observed along with social distancing. Masks are required. Friends and those out of town are invited to watch a live webcast of the funeral service that will be available at Hippensteel Funeral Service under Rosalie's obituary. A Celebration of Life will be held in Chandler, Arizona on March 28th. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Hospice of the Valley at www.hov.org. (Source: Arizona Republic)