Elizabeth Ann "Lizann" Donovan, a registered nurse whose career spanned more than 50 years, died Tuesday of multiple organ failure at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis.

The Chestertown resident was 77.

Elizabeth Ann Curtin, the daughter of a chemist and an educator, was born and raised in Syracuse, N.Y.

She was a 1950 graduate of Most Holy Rosary High School in Syracuse and earned her nursing degree from the St. Joseph Hospital School of Nursing, also in Syracuse.

In 1956, she married Dr. David C. Donovan Jr., who was a pathologist at Bon Secours Hospital and a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Mrs. Donovan, formerly of Dulaney Valley, had nursed for 55 years and for the last 25 years, until retiring in 2005, had been an emergency room nurse at Chester River Hospital Center in Chestertown.

A Chestertown resident since 1980, Mrs. Donovan enjoyed volunteering at her former hospital after retiring and was a rose gardener.

She was a communicant and lector at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Chestertown.

A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10 a.m. Saturday at her church, 508 High St.

In addition to her husband of 54 years, Mrs. Donovan is survived by a son, David Cornelius Donovan III of Herndon, Va.; two daughters, Julia Ann Donovan of Odenton and Elizabeth D. MacLeod of Chestertown; three brothers, John P. Curtin of Marcellus, N.Y., David W. Curtin of Fairfield, Conn., and Gerard M. Curtin of Syracuse; and eight grandchildren.

Frederick N. Rasmussen