A few decades ago, when the band at St. Mary's High School went to a parade or other event, it took a detour to the home of Eleanore Berra Marfisi on the Hill. There, the band played "Hail to the Chief" as Mrs. Marfisi watched from her porch.

It was a tribute to the woman who was the school's principal. She also was one of the best-known residents of the Hill neighborhood. She devoted herself to chronicling its events.

She did all that after serving as a nun for 20 years before returning to St. Louis and the secular life.

Mrs. Marfisi died Sunday (Aug. 1, 2010) at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. She was 84 and had been battling heart disease, her family said.

At St. Mary's, her family recalls, she was known for ruling with an iron fist inside a velvet glove.

She was said to have saved the high school careers of many boys, making sure that they didn't fall through the cracks as a result of some academic or behavioral deficiency.

She taught English and arts before becoming the principal at St. Mary's; one of her best-known students was Francis Slay, who grew up to become mayor of St. Louis.

Slay remembered her Wednesday as one of his favorite teachers.

The mayor signed the foreword to one of her books, "The Hill: Its History, Its Recipes," which was published in 2003. He described the Hill as a place of manicured lawns, tree-lined streets and brick bungalows, "where everyone looks out for one another."

Although Mrs. Marfisi wrote several popular cookbooks, she didn't cook. She described herself as "domestically impaired."

She often told a story about how she once prepared a dish that required parsley.

She diligently chopped up the parsley, but forgot to take the rubber band off the base of the stalks. As guests began eating dinner, they bit into chunks of the rubber band.

"No one told me I had to take those off," she explained.

Mrs. Marfisi was the youngest of 10 children of Italian immigrants. Her father, a terrazzo worker by trade, worked on a mosaic for the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica.

Mrs. Marfisi graduated from Southwest High School and Harris Teachers College.

For the next 20 years, she was a nun with the Apostles of the Sacred Heart and taught at schools in the East.

Her last assignment was teaching literature and art at an all-girls academy in Connecticut. She left the order and returned to St. Louis, where she got a job in 1969 teaching at St. Mary's, an all-boys high school at 4701 South Grand Boulevard.

She was the first female teacher at the Catholic school.

At dinner one evening at the old Galamberti's restaurant (on the Hill, of course), the owner introduced her to her future husband, an accountant who shared her love of literature and art. His name was Dominic Marfisi and they had grown up blocks apart without ever meeting.

In 1984, St. Mary's named her principal, the first woman to hold that post. She retired in 1991.

She helped start and edited Hill 2000, a newspaper dedicated to preserving Italian heritage.

Mrs. Marfisi was named to the Hill's "Walk of Fame." Her books include "St. Louis Italians — The Hill and Beyond," "Sicily: Crossroads of Culture," and the soon to be published "We Had Fun."

She said her love for Italian culture "literally consumes me," and urged Hill residents to write memories of their parents and grandparents.

She told them that "what is not recorded is not preserved, and what is not preserved is lost."

The funeral will be at 10 a.m. today at St. Ambrose Church, 5130 Wilson Avenue. Burial will be at Jefferson Barracks.

Among the survivors, in addition to her husband, is a sister, Mary Berra Enteman of New Albany, Ind.

The family suggests memorial contributions to the Sick and Elderly Program of the Hill, 2315 Macklind Avenue, St. Louis, Mo. 63110.