Rose Virginia Sparks, a retired nurse and restaurant hostess, died of heart failure Thursday at Harbour Home Assisted Living in Chestertown. She was 85.

Born on a family farm on East Neck Island in Kent County, Rose Virginia Strong was a 1935 graduate of Rock Hall High School and earned a degree from the old Union Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Baltimore.

She was a nurse in Baltimore in the 1930s before returning to the Eastern Shore. She became a public health nurse in Queen Anne and Kent counties and worked in the maternity ward of Kent & Queen Anne's Hospital in Chestertown.

After retiring in the 1960s, she was a hostess at brother Joe Strong's restaurant, the Old Wharf Inn, on the Chestertown waterfront.

She later helped care for infants at her daughter's Miss Ann's Day Care in Chestertown.

A member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chestertown, she also attended churches of other denominations in the towns of Rock Hall and Fairlee.

Mrs. Sparks was married three times. Her first husband, Frank O. Sutton Sr., died in 1949. Her marriage to Philip Brown ended in divorce. Her third husband, Raymond Sparks, died in 1979.

Services were held Sunday.

Survivors include a son, the Rev. Frank O. Sutton Jr. of Wyoming, Del.; two daughters, Ann V. Price of Chestertown and Margery A. Frybarger of Rock Hall; two brothers, Joseph W. Strong Sr. of Chestertown and Robert H. Strong Sr. of Rock Hall; seven grandchildren; and 15 great-grandchildren.