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. 

The Gift of the Carnegie Libraries

When I first learned about one of our local libraries in Howell, Michigan, being a historical Carnegie library I was intrigued. I have since learned that Andrew Carnegie funded more than 2500 libraries around the world. 

Andrew Carnegie portrait by unknown
artist, {PD}

Andrew Carnegie is remembered for having a great role in the expansion of the steel industry in the United States and as a wealthy industrialist, but also as a philanthropist. His own personal philosophy was that the rich, once providing for their own needs, should think of their excess wealth as entrusted to them for the betterment of the community. His name lives on today for his charitable work.

A Scottish immigrant who came to America at a young age and settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania with his family. He funded libraries in the two areas which had given him his start, first, one in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1880 and then in 1886, in Braddock, a town just outside of Pittsburgh. Carved into the sandstone above the entry to his first library were the words “Let there be light.” He remembered working as a bobbin boy and wanting to improve his lot in life, yet as a young teen, Carnegie couldn’t afford the two-dollar subscription to the lending library. As an older man he wanted to make them available to everyone. He would go on to fund the building of 1689 public libraries across the United States.      

The world's first Carnegie Library
in Dunfermline, Scotland, photo by
Stephen C. Dickson, 2014 [CC]

Though Carnegie didn’t insist that his libraries be racially integrated, he did build separate libraries for African Americans, in cities such as Houston, Texas and Savannah, Georgia. One bright spot was in the public library in Washington, D.C. for which he donated $300,000 to be built in 1903. The beautiful building is the city’s oldest public library and was open to all races from its start. 

When a town applied for the Carnegie grant for a public library, they had to establish certain criteria. Did the community demonstrate a need for a public library? Could they provide the land for it to be built on? Pay the staff? Carnegie expected each town to provide 10% of what he donated yearly to run and maintain the library. His funding wasn’t just a handout, but it was a hand up offered to those who would invest in the process and the library was to be available and open to all classes.

Carnegie Library in Washington, D.C.,
Mark Schierbecker, 2012, [CC],
Wikimedia Commons

In regards to our local Howell Carnegie District Library, once the community had outgrown library run by the Ladies’ Library Association, the postmaster wrote to Carnegie in 1901 requesting a donation for the building of a library. In January of 1902, Carnegie’s secretary sent a letter stating that $10,000 would be supplied for the library if the village could provide $1000 annually, as well as a suitable piece of land. After disagreements over building costs Carnegie gave them another $5000 and more funds were raised. The MacPherson family donated the land and an architecture firm in Ann Arbor was hired to complete the building. The library opened in 1906.

Howell Carnegie Library, by Aon25, 2012, [CC],
Wikimedia Commons

The last of the Carnegie libraries was built in 1929. Most of the beautiful brick or sandstone structures still endure today. A few have been torn down and some have been added onto. The Howell Carnegie District Library addition, while having many modern internal features, has tastefully incorporated the old-fashioned architecture and flavor of the original building. 

Carnegie Library, Guthrie, Oklahoma, by Steven C. Price,
2015, [CC], Wikimedia Commons

Andrew Carnegie has also been considered a controversial figure because of his labor practices, particularly because of the incident during the strike at Homestead Steel Works, when workers were killed under the watch of one of his supervisors, Henry Clay Frick. Yet, his legacy of generosity lives on across the United States in the form of these longstanding houses of knowledge and enrichment, known as the Carnegie libraries.

Kathleen Rouser is the award-winning author of Rumors and Promises, her first novel about the people of fictional Stone Creek, Michigan, and its sequel, Secrets and Wishes. Kathleen wanted to be a writer before she could even read. She lives in Michigan with her hero and husband, Jack, and the sassy tailless cat who found a home in their empty nest. Connect with Kathleen on her website at kathleenrouser.com, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kathleenerouser/, and on Twitter @KathleenRouser.