Adele Zmarzly was fluent in Spanish, but her warm smile and tender patience with the immigrants she helped crossed all language barriers.

Zmarzly, whose work as a nurse touched thousands of lives, died Tuesday. She was 64.

A nurse for more than 40 years, Zmarzly was passionate about helping others, particularly immigrants, her colleagues said. She spent much of her career with the Roanoke City Health Department and often assisted Roanoke's Refugee and Immigration Services.

Zmarzly spent two years in Colombia volunteering for the Peace Corps in the 1960s and returned again for three years in the 1970s. During that time, she became fluent in Spanish.

She used that skill to reach Roanoke's growing Hispanic population, who come to the health department seeking health screenings, immunizations, family planning and more.

"She had a real love in her heart for the refugees who came here," said Barbara Smith, regional director of Refugee and Immigration Services.

Smith said Zmarzly was especially taken by the "Lost Boys of the Sudan," who were orphaned by the civil war in their country and walked hundreds of miles to Somalia and then Kenya seeking safety.

More than a dozen of the youths came to Roanoke in 2001, where Zmarzly helped treat them.

She didn't speak their language, but she left a lasting impression on them, Smith said.

"She remembered them, and they remembered her," she said.

Naimo Hassam, 25, met Zmarzly at the health department when she first arrived in Roanoke from Somalia in 2000.

Zmarzly approached Hassam with a smile and shook her hand, clasping it, as her colleagues said she always did.

After their first meeting, Zmarzly helped Hassam's family by delivering medicine to their apartment and making sure they had enough clothing and food, Hassam said.

Hassam is now a caseworker at Refugee and Immigration Services, where Zmarzly always greeted her with a hug and a pat on the back.

Zmarzly's colleagues and friends say her outpouring of love for everyone is something they've never experienced with anyone else.

She cherished her friends and always baked cakes and cookies for their children's birthdays.

It was her caring nature that made her an exceptional person, and an exceptional nurse, said Zmarzly's friend, Elise Robison.

"She did not discover a planet or anything like that," Robison said. "She did more important things that we forget to do every day."