Florence Marion Rush (nee Pavlik) passed away peacefully on Sunday, November 2, 2025 at the age of 97. She was the beloved mother of twelve children and was known affectionately as “Gramma Flo” or “G Flo.” Many of her children, grands, and great-grands saw her in good health and good spirits in her last several weeks going out to dinner and sharing photographs and stories. She passed in the care of Suncoast Hospice after a brief hospital stay.
Florence was born on Thanksgiving Day in Waukegan, Illinois to George and Jennie Pavlik. As a child, her family frequently traveled to Florida, first to Miami and later to Seminole where they bought land. While on one of these months’ long trips, a raccoon joined the family and became a favorite pet.
In High School, Florence joined the Girls Athletic Association, the Junior ROTC, and the Slide Rule Club. She excelled academically. She and her sisters, Dorothy and Virginia, helped their father build a house on a nursery the family owned. The girls stacked stones for the basement and foundation walls. This is where Florence learned to lathe plaster walls, a skill she was proud of. She also helped in the family orchard selling fresh-pressed apple cider from a stand on Sheridan Road. Pavlik’s Lakeway Nursery was well-known in the Chicago area for cider and Christmas trees. The sisters lived and worked there until they went off to college.
Florence graduated from Iowa State College (now ISU) where she lettered as a member of the dance team. She studied Engineering until her final semester when her major was changed to Home Economics. After graduation, she traversed the Midwest, mostly by train, becoming a nationally famous home economist and frozen food specialist. Her employer, Amana Refigeration, ran full page newspaper ads in each city she traveled to announcing her upcoming cooking and “home freezing technique” classes.
After she married Joseph C. Rush, MD during a December blizzard, they moved to Omaha where she continued her work as a Home Economist. While working in Nebraska, she spearheaded the drive to feed hundreds of volunteers who took action when the Platte River flooded. She later said she had all of her “group feeding” cookbooks ready when church groups came in and mobilized to keep people fed during the sandbagging efforts.
From Omaha, Florence and Joe moved twice between St. Louis, Missouri and the St. Pete/Clearwater area, finally building a home and settling in St. Pete on Park Street. Florence lived in that home for 50 years celebrating weddings and wakes, birthdays and Christmases, and many day-to-day victories.
While raising her twelve children, she did thousands of loads of laundry and cooked massive meals. Her engineering background was well utilized, as her efficiency kept the household humming. The St. Petersburg “Evening Independent” did a lengthy feature story about her methods. Years later, the Times featured her in an article about garage sales. Having grown up in the Great Depression, she wasted nothing. When the milk delivery was left outside, she turned it into cottage cheese. She would make “Turkey Carcass Soup” after Thanksgiving. She was an excellent cook and weekly grocery shopping usually involved three shopping carts full, supplemented by midweek purchases. Most of her sons worked as bagboys at the local grocery store to get a sizable discount for the family which for years included Florence’s own mother.
Florence was an avid reader and often had interesting theories to put to the test. One was having all of her children stand on their heads to improve their balance. Neighbors enjoyed the sight of an upside-down, middle-aged mom surround by numerous, lanky children all with their feet toward the sky. She made sure that her kids were ready for school by teaching them phonics and math skills prior to first grade. She took her children to the public libraries’ story hours weekly.
Although she said she couldn’t swim, she did in fact pass her high school swimming test completing the two required laps by starting in the deep end and swimming to the shallow end, hopping out and walking back to the deep end to do it again. She convinced her teacher that it made no sense for her to swim toward deep water where she could drown. Florence taught many of her children swimming basics and motivated some to go to swim class by painting one fingernail a day – after ten lessons they had both hands done. Instilling these skills in all of her children ensured that she would always have several lifeguards handy when she would go out on a boat.
Florence was an active school and sports volunteer frequently tutoring math at Boca Ciega High School. She created a peg board device to show students how area and volume didn’t change when shape changed. When the youngest “Rush kid” graduated, Florence was given an award for her over twenty years of service to the school, having outlasted several principals. She timed swimming races, and watched a tremendous number of baseball, football, and soccer games. She went to ballets, stage plays, revues, and talent shows that her children and grandchildren were in. At her Barrington Senior Living home, she was in a play or two herself.
She hosted a sewing group at her home for many years, and took part in the group’s fashion shows modeling her stylish creations. She made herself a Qipao and wore it to one grandchild’s wedding, impressing the Chinese guests who said she was “very clever” for having made decorative knot buttons by hand.
Florence was active her whole life even doing chair exercise up until a few weeks before passing. She could show off her “Martha Graham fall” well into her sixties.
A lifelong Catholic, she enjoyed Sunday mass and was a longtime parishioner at the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle in St. Pete; more recently she attended St. Patrick’s in Largo. She especially delighted in her children’s and grand-children’s weddings and the baptisms of so many little ones. “G Flo” took the microphone at one wedding, and sang “Old Time Rock & Roll.”
Florence is predeceased by her husband of more than 50 years, Joseph C. Rush, MD and two of her children, Rita Jeanette Hickey and Daniel Thomas Rush. She is survived by her children and their spouses: Michael and Jan Rush (Ft. Lauderdale), Fluffy and Chick Winship (Peachtree City, GA), Joseph Rush (Melrose, FL), Patrick and Robyn Rush (Newberry, FL), Brian and Margaret Rush (Tampa, FL), Bernadette and Dick Carmical (Collins, AR), Theresa and EJ Richardson (St. Petersburg, FL), Tim Rush (Tampa, FL), Chris and Silvia Rush (Oviedo, FL), and Elizabeth and William Cottrell (Belleair, FL). She also leaves behind 27 grandchildren, and 43 great-grandchildren.
No memorial or gathering is planned at this time. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that you think kind thoughts and take the opportunity to do a good deed. If you wish to make a donation, several of the charities Florence supported are: The St. Petersburg Free Clinic, St. Vincent de Paul, Catholic Charities of St. Petersburg, and Suncoast Hospice.
