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Jessica Anne Leen’s nursing career covered life’s full circle, from caring for newborns and their mothers to providing comfort for patients at the end of their lives.

As a labor and delivery nurse, she knew just what to say to keep soon-to-be mothers and fathers calm. And as a hospice nurse, she created a sense of serenity in sometimes emotionally charged situations.

“Just her presence in a room would inspire confidence and trust in both her patients and their families,” said Phyllis Cooper, a fellow hospice nurse with Hospice of DuPage. “She was comforting and empathetic in a very reassuring way.”

Leen, 82, a longtime Elmhurst resident, died Aug. 31 at St. Thomas Hospice in Hinsdale after a short bout with acute leukemia.

“She was a very special lady who lived her life with grace and a deep sense of gratitude for each new day,” Cooper said.

Born Jessica Witker in Toledo, Ohio, Leen was the eldest of five children and the daughter of an accountant. She attended St. Ursula Academy, then earned her R.N. at St. Vincent School of Nursing, both in Toledo.

She went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in nursing from St. Louis University, where she met her future husband, Terry Leen. After they married in 1959, they moved to South Bend, Ind., where Jessica started her nursing career as a labor and delivery nurse and a clinical instructor at St. Joseph Hospital.

“Among her other duties, she was the woman in the nursery helping all the dads on the other side of the glass window by pointing to their babies in the cribs,” said her husband. “Back then, men stayed in the waiting rooms until their babies were born.”

After moving to Elmhurst in 1962 and raising six children, Leen enrolled in courses to refresh her nursing skills. She developed an interest in what was then the emerging field of hospice care and underwent training in that area.

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“Her own father died of cancer in his home in Ohio around that same time,” her husband said. “So she understood how difficult it was and the personal toll it can take on families.”

In the mid-1980s, Leen worked at LaGrange Hospital briefly before becoming one of the first hospice nurses with Hospice of DuPage.

Later she continued working there after it became known as Community Nursing Service.

Upon her retirement, Leen returned to working as a hospice volunteer with St. Thomas Hospice, where she was still an active volunteer until receiving her leukemia diagnosis in May.

“She was so dedicated to her patients and talked about them as if they were part of her own family,” said Barbara Koltz, a fellow volunteer with St. Thomas Hospice. “So much of what you do is sit and listen to your patients and keep them as comfortable as possible. Jessica was so good at that. She was a gentle soul.”

Leen was active at Visitation Catholic Parish in Elmhurst, where she was a past president of the Council of Catholic Women, bereavement minister and PADS volunteer for the homeless.

“Her faith was so important to her,” her husband said. “It was her guiding light. It gave her the underlying strength to be there, day in and day out, for people facing their own mortality.”

In addition to her husband, Leen is survived by two sons, Patrick and Michael; four daughters, Elizabeth Spratley, Moira Savel, Jennifer Mussatto and Ellen Anderson; a brother, Peter Witker; three sisters, Judy Witker, Cathie Jaffee and Anne Hartley; and 12 grandchildren.

Services were held.

Joan Giangrasse Kates is a freelance reporter.