Louise Herrington Ornelas

 Extraordinary Woman and Benefactor

In the fall of 1953, I enrolled as a freshman in the Baylor University School of Nursing. Three years before that, the school became a part of the Baccalaureate program with a four year course leading to a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. I was in the program 2 years before health issues caused me to transfer back to the main campus and change majors. Even though I was no longer in the program, I kept up with my nursing classmates. 

Over the years I became more interested in the school, and when my granddaughter-in-law graduated a few years ago from the Louise Herrington School of Nursing, I decided to do a little more research as to who Louise Herrington Ornelas was and her connection with the school. 

This remarkable lady was born on June 15, 1925 in Las Cruces, New Mexico, but she grew up in Arp, Texas. Yes, a real place in Smith County in East Texas and once inhabited by Caddo Indians. She always thought of herself as a simple country girl from East Texas, but the impact she had with her life and her wealthy will live on forever. 

Her parents were Bill ad Minnie Herrington, and Louise had 6 brothers and sisters. Although limited in resources, she grew up on a tenant farm in a home filled with love, laughter, and hard work.

A turning point in her life came as a child at a birthday party for the farm's owner daughter. Her mother had made dresses out of flour sacks for Louise and her sisters to wear to the party. After playing and having fun for while, the hostess and a few other guests turned water hoses on Louise, making fun of her dress.

Louise said, "I decided then that I would never treat people the way we were treated that day." And she didn't. She spent most of her adult life giving away what she had. 

She married Martin Eugene Pettis, one of her brothers' best friends, and they moved to West Texas where he worked in the oil fields. They had one son, Ricky, before Martin was killed in a car crash.

Louise returned to East Texas where she met and married her second husband, Bob Rogers. They had six children from that marriage. The couple risked everything they had to launch TCA Cable in Tyler early on in the rapidly growing and lucrative industry of cable television. The company grew rapidly to 883,000 customers. A few years later, Bob and Louise sold it to Cox Communications for $3.5 billion.

After her divorce from Bob Rogers, she met and married a man wealthy in his

own right, Joseph Z. Ornelas, and the two became well known and well-loved philanthropists. 

She dreamed of one day becoming a nurse, but obligations and responsibilities with her family kept her from realizing that dream. Her sister did become a nurse and served as one as a lieutenant in WWll. That and her own love for nursing became a great influence on her life in later years. Keeping with her love of nursing, Louise or "Miss Lou" as she was called, volunteered as a Pink Lady at Tyler Hospital in Tyler, Texas for 30 years. 

    

 That love of nursing led to her and husband to donate over $13 million to Baylor University for its School of Nursing in Dallas. For that endowment, the school became known as the Louise Herrington School of Nursing. 

             

Miss Lou was loved by all those who knew her. Her love for people and education led to gifts to a number of higher institutions that honored her with honorary degrees. Among them were Tyler Junior College, Baylor University and East Texas Baptist University for her success in business and support of education. 

In 2001, Louise was honored by the Texas Legislature for philanthropic deeds that benefited education, medicine and religious institutions. Following is a quote from the resolution presented at the state Capitol. "Guided by honest values, basic goodness and clear goals, Mrs. Ornelas is using her resources to make a real difference in the lives of countless people, and it both a privilege and a pleasure to recognize her great contributions to this state"

Over their lifetime, Louise and Joseph Ornelas received many honors and awards for their philanthropy. 

Louise Herrington Ornelas went to be with Jesus in December of 2018 at the age of 93.

I've met and known some great women in my life, and I wish I could have known Louise. Everything said and written about her showed her to be a woman who loved the Lord and giving so others could have a better life. One friend said she loved pranks and people came to realize that if you were pranked by Louise, you were a true friend. 

Martha Rogers is a multi-published author and writes a weekly devotional for ACFW. Martha and her husband Rex live in Houston, Texas where they are active members of First Baptist Church. They are the parents of three sons and grandparents to eleven grandchildren and great-grandparents to six. Martha is a retired teacher with twenty-eight years teaching Home Economics and English at the secondary level and eight years teaching Freshman English at the college level. She is a member of ACFW, ACFW WOTS chapter in Houston, and serves as President of the writers’ group, Inspirational Writers Alive. 

Asthma Treatments in History (with Giveaway) By Donna Schlachter

Typical hospital in the 1800's

 

While we might consider asthma a modern illness, caused by pollutants and other irritants, the affliction has been around since sickness and disease entered this world. Records from China dating back to around 2600 B.C. mention symptoms of breathlessness, but the disease wasn’t given its current name of Asthma until around 600 B.C. when Hippocrates linked the symptoms to environmental triggers. He recommended a concoction of owl’s blood and wine to alleviate symptoms, not recognizing that asthma was, in fact, a disease.

In 1500 B.C., The Ebers Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian account of medical conditions and treatments, recommends heating a mixture of herbs on a brick and then inhaling the fumes.

Pliny the Elder, in 50 B.C., realized pollen was a contributing factor, and prescribed an early predecessor for epinephrine to alleviate breathing problems.

However, until the late 1800’s, sufferers relied mostly on homemade tinctures and potions, finding varying degrees of relief.

In the late 1800’s, Dr. Henry Salter recognized a series of factors that, while not the cause of asthma, contributed to the symptoms in various individuals. The external factors included exercise, particularly in cold air; laughing; coughing; sneezing; chemical and mechanical irritants; and animal and vegetable irritants, such as dander and pollen. He was the first to provide explanations and drawings of the workings of the lungs, and the effects of asthma, including inflammation; and congestion of mucous membranes.

He tried various non-traditional remedies, including sleep; avoidance of opiates; hot, strong coffee; and the conservative use of belladonna. Studies and personal accounts proved his remedies more effective than the traditional. 

In 1892, Sir William Osler, one of the co-founders of the John Hopkins Medical School, set out his own definition of asthma, with bronchial spasms featured high on his list. He noted the similarities between asthma and other allergic conditions, such as hay fever. He also reported that asthma tends to run in families, and first appears in childhood. He concurred with Dr. Salter’s triggers such as climate, extreme emotion, and diet.

However, his focus on airway blockage as the result of smooth muscle spasms in the airways rather than on the mucous membrane congestion resulted in doctors and pharmacies distributing medications called bronchodilators to calm airway spasms. Eventually, these became available without a prescription as an asthma treatment.

Because of the short-term soothing effects on the bronchial system without addressing the deeper immune problems that drive asthma, over-reliance on these medications resulted in a surge in deaths from asthma through the mid-1960s and 1980s.

Once treating the symptoms was recognized as not solving the problem, researchers addressed the cause and long-term management, including strengthening the immune system, avoiding triggers, and enabling the body to repel the auto-immune reactions.

In my book, A Nurse for Caleb, Tessa’s interest in medicine and her time of training in medical school followed by tutelage under a doctor propels her to read and study the latest innovations in medicine. She has read Dr. Salter’s articles published in the American Journal of Medical Sciences and the British Medical Journal, and applies his recommendations in her treatment of Caleb.



Resources

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323526#more-recent-developments

https://www.sophisticatededge.com/asthma-treatment-history.html



Question: In a way, Caleb was a trial study for Tessa, since she wasn’t certain what worked and what didn’t. Would you enroll in a medical trial to treat a disease even if you weren’t sure it would work? Leave a comment, and I’ll draw randomly for a free ebook of A Nurse for Caleb. Please leave your email address disguised as NAME AT Server DOT EXTENSION, for example, marycontrary AT gmail DOT com



About A Nurse for Caleb

In 1868, Tessa, a Mennonite nurse graduates from nursing school and is assigned to the Amana Colonies in Iowa because of her expertise in treating asthma and other breathing problems. As a former student at a women's medical school, she knows more than most about respiratory diseases. She's also had her fair share of heartbreak when, upon her mentor's death, she was forced to abandon her dream of becoming a doctor. Will she be able to use her skills? Or will her gender keep her from helping those who truly need her?

Seth, a widower in Amana, is still nursing a broken heart from his sweetheart's passing two years before. Now raising their invalid son Seth on his own, he wonders why God didn't listen to his prayers for healing for his family. Caleb has been afflicted with the same form of asthma that killed Anna, and Seth stands by helplessly as his son fades away. Can he trust God and trust medicine, or is faith in one mutually exclusive of faith in the other?



About Donna

Donna lives in Denver with husband Patrick. As a hybrid author, she writes historical suspense under her own name, and contemporary suspense under her alter ego of Leeann Betts, and has been published more than 30 times in novellas and full-length novels. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Writers on the Rock, Sisters In Crime, Pikes Peak Writers, and Christian Authors Network; facilitates a critique group; and teaches writing classes online and in person. Donna also ghostwrites, edits, and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, and travels extensively for both. Donna is represented by Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary Management.

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Nursing in the 1860’s – with giveaway -- By Donna Schlachter

Often, when we think back to medicine in history, leeches and bleeding comes to mind. And while those techniques were used for centuries, we do see great strides made and progress in surgeries and the understanding of how the human body works.

One of the major reasons for advancements in medicine in general, and nursing in particular, was the American Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of men died in combat, but more died on the operating tables and in the field hospitals that popped up near every battle, major and minor.

Often, the only answer to the catastrophic injuries sustained on the battlefield was amputation. Nurses were often soldiers pressed into service to hold the patient down, or to administer chloroform directly from a bloodied rag that had been used for a dozen patients or more prior. Camp followers, accustomed to cooking meals and doing laundry, were often asked to carry damaged and diseased appendages outside the camp and burn them.

Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton, highly trained nurses themselves, were appalled with this situation, and resolved to make changes. After the war ended and the country entered into an uneasy truce with itself, they petitioned government to set up training schools for young women to learn anatomy, biology, physiology, and pharmacology.

However, in the uneasy years immediately after the war, when nurses were still needed to care for those recovering from their wounds, as well as to offer assistance in hospitals and medical practices, others set up shorter-term training schools which trained nurses in the rudiments of medicine, encouraging them to spend extra-curricular hours of learning and apprenticeship under trained doctors, to graduate and send them out into the cities and towns where they were sorely needed.

Many industrious young women, or older spinsters and widows, undertook this rigorous training. These informal schools filled the gap until the longer, more formalized schools admitted students in the late 1860’s and early 1870’s.

By this time, the Lister method of sanitary surgery, which included sterilizing instruments and sanitizing the patient, the doctor and attending staff, and the operating theater, were much in discussion. While American doctors initially decried the extra work, it soon became apparent that their mortality rate was much higher, and the time spent fighting infection soon convinced them to adopt the method.

Research into breathing issues such as asthma was also generating alternatives. While initially the cause of asthma was thought to be excess exercise or cold air, studies soon proved there were other causes, including allergies. Several new treatment options were adopted, including the guarded use of belladonna, and strong coffee, both of which proved successful in many cases.

Nurses were often employed in small communities that did not require the services or could not support a full-time doctor. They carried basic instruments, common medicines, and could as easily deliver a child as remove tonsils or pull a tooth.

While the role of nurses has changed a great deal since then, no doubt there are many who would never have survived without the basic medical skills taught these brave women in our history.

Leave a comment and be entered into a drawing for an eBook version of A Nurse for Caleb, as a special pre-release gift.





Resources:

Two Centuries of American Medicine: 1776-1976—Bordley and Harvey

On the Pathology of Asthma—Dr. Henry Salter

About A Nurse for Caleb (releases September 3, 2020):

In 1868, Tessa, a Mennonite nurse graduates from nursing school and is assigned to the Amana Colonies in Iowa because of her expertise in treating asthma and other breathing problems. As a former student at a women's medical school, she knows more than most about respiratory diseases. She's also had her fair share of heartbreak when, upon her mentor's death, she was forced to abandon her dream of becoming a doctor. Will she be able to use her skills? Or will her gender keep her from helping those who truly need her?

Seth, a widower in Amana, is still nursing a broken heart from his sweetheart's passing two years before. Now raising their invalid son Seth on his own, he wonders why God didn't listen to his prayers for healing for his family. Caleb has been afflicted with the same form of asthma that killed Anna, and Seth stands by helplessly as his son fades away. Can he trust God and trust medicine, or is faith in one mutually exclusive of faith in the other?


About Donna:

Donna writes historical suspense under her own name, and contemporary suspense under her alter ego of Leeann Betts, and has been published more than 30 times in novellas, full-length novels, and non-fiction books. She is a member of ACFW, Writers on the Rock, SinC, Pikes Peak Writers, and CAN; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; ghostwrites; edits; and judges in writing contests. www.HiStoryThruTheAges.com

LEFT BEHIND - CIVIL WAR WOMEN by Golden Keyes Parsons

The War Between the States changed much of the culture of our country, none anymore than that of

women. Before the war, for upper class women, the home was a haven of femininity and chivalry. For the Southern woman, the house slaves took care of the cooking, cleaning and care of children.And, of course, the field slaves handled the crops and livestock. But when war was declared and the women had to bid their husbands, fathers and brothers good-bye, all of that proper society was turned upside-down.

Many of the slaves initially remained on the plantations in the South, but as the war wore on, more and more of them left. Women took to the fields themselves to harvest the crops, along with their children. Eventually most of the plantations collapsed under the devastation of the Union Army ravaging their livestock and food. Lower class women fared even worse, as they struggled simply to feed themselves and their children.

Some women followed their men onto the battle field, cooking and nursing as the battles raged around them. Nursing had traditional been a man's domain up until this time, but as the male population became more and more decimated, the women assumed that role. Every facility available became a hospital, from churches to front porches, and the women tended to the wounded.

In the North women organized sewing societies to make blankets, flags, and knit scarves and socks for their loved ones. They canned food, planted vegetable gardens and raised funds for medical supplies. Some women, on both sides, disguised themselves as men and fought alongside the men. On both sides there were women who acted as spies.

Perhaps more than any other war, the Civil War shifted the roles of women from keepers at home to serving in an active position in society. I can't help but think how women always rise to the occasion when called upon. 

Golden Keyes Parsons writes historical fiction, and is also a popular retreat/conference speaker. Her highly acclaimed Darkness to Light Series (Thomas Nelson) chronicled the journey of her French Huguenot ancestors in 17^th century France. Her fourth novel, His Steadfast Love, is a Civil War novel set in Texas. Her latest release is a compilation of four novellas (WhiteFire Publishing) – a biblical fiction series entitled Hidden Faces, Portraits of Nameless Women in the Gospels. Golden lives in Waco, TX, with her husband, Blaine, where they enjoy their children, grandchildren and are avid sports fans of their alma mater, Baylor University. You can contact her at www.goldenkeyesparsons.com.