Lela Mae Stokes

Most people in Orlando have never heard of Lela Mae Stokes, a woman who literally touched the lives of over 40,000 people born at Orange Memorial Hospital from 1925 to 1968. This post is dedicated to her memory.

1894 Allegan, Michigan

Lela Mae Thompson was born on November 22, 1894, on a farm in the small village of Allegan, Michigan. At a very early age Lela joined others in the village who tended to neighbors who fell ill. In 1909, at the age of 14, in spite of “strong parental resistance,” she resolved to become a nurse without any financial assistance from her family.

Lela first took a position caring for two small children and later moved with the family to Grand Rapids, Michigan. While living there, she completed courses at a local high school that she needed to enter the nursing program at Butterworth Hospital. To earn money for tuition for nursing school, she took a position at the D.A. Blodgett boarding school where she learned much interacting with the 120 children who lived there.

1919 Butterworth Hospital

On September 22, 1919, Lela arrived at Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids with $350 to pay for her tuition for three years of nursing school. She took with her the high ideals of her family doctor who told her, “Be courteous, sympathetic, thoughtful and kind with your patients. At all times be calm. Do not look for praise. Be interested in every patient.”

After two weeks, Lela was assigned as a “probationer” to the Golden Rule Cottage Children’s Hospital. Probationers all started with scrubbing as there were no nurses’ aides or Pink Ladies to perform these tasks. After six months of hard work, Lela was presented her nurse’s cap, and on September 22, 1922, Lela graduated from nursing school at Butterworth Hospital. After passing the State Board examinations, Lela was appointed Pediatric Supervisor at the Golden Rule Cottage where she served for three years.

1925 Orange General Hospital

Fate brought Lela to Orlando, as it often does with folks who arrive for a holiday and decide to stay forever. While visiting a friend’s sister in Orlando, Lela was offered and accepted a position at Orange Memorial Hospital, thus beginning a 43-year career in obstetrics on November 16, 1925.

During Hospital Week in May 1954, at a gathering of the members of the Orange Memorial Hospital Stork Club, Lela was honored for her 28 years of service as head of the maternity department. Orlando Mayor J. Rolfe Davis presented her with Hawaiian orchids at the event which was attended by hospital staff and hundreds of parents with their children who were born during Lela’s time at Orange Memorial.

1955 Scholarship Fund and Heart Attack

It was announced at the September 1955 meeting of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Orange Memorial Hospital and reported in the Orlando Sentinel on September 2, 1955, that a nursing scholarship fund had been set up in honor of Lela. “Stokes is obstetrical supervisor for Orange Memorial, a position she has held for nearly 30 years. The scholarship is rotating, and the first recipient is entering the OMH School of Nursing next week.”

In 1955, Jean Yothers the Orlando Sentinel’s “On the Town” columnist, suggested in her column that Lela write a book about her experiences. Yothers wrote:

“There’s the old cliché that no one is indispensable, but how would Orange Memorial Hospital have functioned all this time without Mrs. Lela D. Stokes, head of obstetrics? She’s been with the hospital 30 years tomorrow… Happy OB anniversary, Mrs. Stokes! Why don’t you write a book on your experiences in OB?”

Shortly after her 30th anniversary, Lela suffered a heart attack and, while recovering in a bed in her own hospital, she contemplated that she might soon have to put aside her nurse’s cap and uniform and someone would have to carry on in her place. She describes that moment in her book:

“Suddenly, I was confronted with the thought that I might owe something to the generations yet unborn, something to the thousands who would one day don the uniform and carry on. So, I decided to record in print, as best I might, the salient events of my life, first as a young girl and then as a nurse. My early life has no significance to this recording except to show that in America it is possible to overcome poverty, adversity and discouragement and still take a worthwhile place in society. Therefore, this book.”

1962 My Forty Years as a Nurse

Lela’s book, “My Forty Years as a Nurse” published in 1962, while only 76 pages in length, encompasses the important events that led to Lela’s arrival at Orange Memorial Hospital, meeting her husband William G. Stokes, and beyond. But the book has much more than just Lela’s personal history. She describes the Nurses’ Home were the single nurses lived, the dedicated doctors and nurses, Pink Ladies, Candy-Stripers and all who made Orange Memorial function. The Foreword is written by Dr. Charles J. Collins, former Chief of Obstetrics who writes, in part:

“It is a privilege given to few to have had over thirty years of intimate contact with the sublime mysteries of birth and new life, to have witnessed the look of adoration of a new father when he sees the face of his wife as she is being wheeled from the delivery room, to have seen the tender Madonna-like expression of the young mother as she holds her new born in her arms for the first time, to have comforted the bitter disappointment and tears that occur when unexpected tragedy strikes. This has been the life of the authoress who has set down in words the gamut of human emotions which she has experienced as the supervisor of a maternity floor in a modern hospital.”

1962 Florida Magazine – Woman of the Week

On February 4, 1962, Lela was featured on the cover of Florida Magazine as Woman of the Week. In the three-page feature, Lela shares wonderful memories – some happy, some sad, some funny – about her time as a nurse. Commenting on how beauty is in the eye of the beholder, she said:

“People are very sensitive about their babies and when they ask me, ‘Isn’t it a beautiful baby,’ if it’s really not, I just tell them it’s a fine baby! If I couldn’t tell them the truth, I try not to tell them anything.”

Asked about her heart attack in 1955 and her outlook for the future, Lela responded:

“I don’t ever want to retire. It makes you get old too quick. I think it is so much better if you can keep yourself active, and I am sure there is always something you can do for people. Hard work never hurt anyone. You get out of life what you put into it.”

Lela’s dedication to her work was unmatched. Speaking about her attendance record, she stated:

“I never was late but one time, and that was when I lived 15 miles out and got a flat tire on the way in one morning.” Even the day back in 1950 when her house burned down, she arrived at the Hospital in a bathrobe and an old pair of slippers. “When I got here, I put on an old sheet for a slip and put my uniform on over it and went to work.”

1968 Lela Stokes Retires

The Hushpuppies section of the Orlando Sentinel on September 18, 1968, announced Lela Stoke’s upcoming retirement from Orange Memorial Hospital shortly before her 74th birthday:

“September 27th at the Orange Memorial Hospital is going to be some kind of a day. That’s the date Lela Stokes is going to retire. She’s retiring with 44 years as supervisor of the hospital’s maternity department to her name. The day is going to be known as Lela Stokes Day… She’s quite a lady, and that should be quite a day at OMH.”

1991 Lela “Ma” Stokes Passes Away

Lela Stokes, affectionately called “Ma” Stokes by thousands of Orlandoans, passed away June 16, 1991. Even in death, she desired to benefit the institution where she worked for 43 years. Her obituary published in the Orlando Sentinel June 18, 1991, p. B4, explains:

“Lela Mae Stokes, 96, died Sunday. She was the obstetrics supervisor at Orange Memorial Hospital when she began her nursing in 1925. Mrs. Stokes, affectionately known as “Ma” retired in 1968 after 43 years of dedicated, caring service. She assisted doctors in their delivery of over 40,000 babies, many 3rd generation Orlando citizens… In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the ORMC Foundation designated to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Women…”

If you’d like to read Lela’s brief biography, visit the Orange County Library System at OCLS.org and request the book for home delivery or visit the Orlando Public Library Florida Collection and read it there – FLORIDA B STOKES.

As Dave Howell said in the Florida Magazine Woman of the Week article, “Like its author, the book is unsophisticated, plain, sincere, and dedicated utterly to the medical profession. It’s no masterpiece. Errors and misprints are occasional distractions… But lack of polish in her memoirs doesn’t seem nearly so important as the deep love they express for the people who have needed her and still need her.”

After reading Lela’s little biography, I totally concur. My only regret is that I never met this amazing woman!