As she had done for years, Marie Kinzler organized the 2008 St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish "Irish Fling" card party and luncheon at Chartiers Country Club with characteristic flair and efficiency.

Unfortunately, she was not able to attend the March 1 festivities because the cancer she had been battling for two years sent her to a hospital the day before. She died March 19, exactly one week before her 84th birthday.

"When she was in charge of a project, she wanted it done right and wanted it to be the best," said her friend and former neighbor, Gretchen Grimes, of Collier.

"Everything she was involved in turned out perfectly," agreed Mrs. Kinzler's sister, Lucille Sterba, of Carnegie. "She loved the society stuff."

But for all her love of perfection and putting on a good show, the petite and peppy Mrs. Kinzler was also a hard worker who learned early that life isn't all glitz.

The eldest of five children of Guy and Catherine Chiodo, Mrs. Kinzler was born in Carnegie and went to the former Clark High School in Scott, where she was head cheerleader and editor of the yearbook. The day of her high school graduation in 1942, her father died, along with her plan of attending college to become a French teacher.

"She put her dreams aside to help raise the younger kids," her son, Steve Kinzler, said.

After short work stints in the Clark High School superintendent's office, Bell Telephone and Kaufmann's, she was hired by Carnegie's Knepper Press Corp. in the mid-1940, where she learned the publishing business from the ground up. When James W. Knepper Jr. took over the business from his father in 1957, she was named editor of the weekly Signal-Item. It was a job she held for more than two decades, until after Mr. Knepper sold the paper and its sister, The Bridgeville Area News, in 1984.

Calling her "a tough cookie" who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to stand up to local officials and politicians, Mr. Knepper said her dedication, persistence and diligence contributed significantly to the newspaper's character.

Mary McCracken, of Scott, former editor of The Bridgeville Area News, remembered with a chuckle, "She used to tell me she had the best paper and I had the second best."

As editor, Mrs. Kinzler knew everything that was going on in and around Carnegie, but she did more than write about such activities. She participated in the planning and organization of numerous community fund-raisers, benefits and large events, such as Carnegie's weeklong Diamond Jubilee 75th birthday celebration in 1969. And, she was very active in church work, first with St. Joseph's Parish and then with the consolidated St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish.

At St. Joseph's, she taught Sunday school and was president of the Christian Mothers. At St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, she was president of the Ladies of Charity and sang in the requiem choir.

She used her exceptional organizational skills in her personal life, too, never forgetting friends' and family members' birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions.

Mrs. Kinzler and her husband, Stephen J. Kinzler, lived most of their married life in Collier's Rennerdale neighborhood. After his death in 2001, she moved to Washington Gardens in Carnegie, where she and Mrs. Sterba had apartments on different floors.

Besides her son and sister, Mrs. Kinzler is survived by her daughter-in-law, Susan, and grandchildren Stephen and Suzanne, all of North Carolina; a sister, Ursula Burnside, of Bethel Park, and a brother Martin J. Chiodo, of Allegheny, N.Y. Another brother, Anthony "Sam" Chiodo, and a sister, Eileen Bushem, are deceased.

Mrs. Kinzler was buried Friday next to her husband at the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies in Cecil, Washington County. Memorial contributions can be made to St. Joseph Cemetery, c/o St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, 205 Mary St., Carnegie, PA 15106.