Honoring Others
From celebrating a granddaughter's achievements to memorializing a nurse's commitment to her profession, the following gifts illustrate how families and classmates are honoring others with gifts to the School of Nursing.
 Virginia Voyles Tester 08N 10MN with daughter Naomi, grandmother Mary Elizabeth Schroder, and mother Belle Schroder Voyles |
Wise Counsel
When Virginia Voyles Tester’s family had an Atlanta history question, they turned to her grandmother for the answer. Born and reared in the city, Mary Elizabeth Schroder lived in the same house for 50-plus years.
“My grandmother Mimi was a great historian,” says Tester. “She was a bright woman and remembered every fact and detail.”
Mimi also was a good listener who counseled her family to follow their dreams. Tester discovered hers in Rwanda, where she studied the role of the church in the HIV crisis as a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“I saw a real need to improve the health of communities,” says Tester, who plans to return to Africa one day. “I could do that better as a nurse.”
Thus, Tester became a Fuld Fellow at Emory. Established by the Helene Fuld Health Trust, fellowships target second-career nursing students intent on serving vulnerable populations.
“Mimi was a great source of support for me throughout my nursing program,” says Tester, now a family nurse practitioner and nurse-midwife with Kaiser Permanente in Atlanta.
Last July, Tester and her husband became parents. Mother and daughter Naomi were present when Mimi celebrated her birthday last September. She died later that month at age 93.
Shortly before her death, Mimi made a gift to Emory’s Nursing Scholarship Fund in honor of Tester and her new daughter.
“Mimi cared about what her loved ones cared about,” says Tester. “She was the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.”
