Mary DiDonato RN at her anniversary dinner(Photo by Charles Heimbaugh)
Mary A. DiDonato RN observed her 60th aqnniversary as a nurse in September and is still working as an oncology nurse. She graduated from the St. Thomas Hospital School of Nursing on September 9, 1951 and her class was the first to attend St. John’s College in Cleveland when a bachelor’s degree became a nursing requirement.
She is a real sports enthusiast so she remembers well when the Indians won the pennant in 1948. On October 10, 1948, Game 5 of the World Series against the Boston Braves drew over 84,000 which was then a record.
“Euclid Avenue was jammed,” she recalled. “My next goal is to go to the Super Bowl with the Browns.’ She has a season ticket and sits in the dog pound.
Her first employment as a nurse was in the emergency room at St. Thomas Hospital from 1951 to 1955. She then went to Akron General Medical Center for 37 years from 1955 to 1992. She was head nurse (nurse manager). and did training or staff development.. From 1984 to 1992– she did oncology nursing. She retired from Akron General in 1992 and for the next two years did volunteer work for Red Cross, Vistinng Nurse Service and St. Edward Village.
She then went to work for Dr. Sandra V. Hazra in medical oncology in January, 1997 and is still employed there,
Seven of her nursing school graduates from the Class of 1951 attended a dinner in her honor on Sunday, September 11, at Guy’s Party Center on Waterlloo Road. They are Helen Luppino, Nancy Schlegel, Nancy Heaton, Jane Hughey, Jean Vondemkap -- and Ms. D which is what her colleages call her.
Mary Augusta DiDonato was born April 1, 1930 in Akron, the oldest of seven children of Leopold and Beatrice (Ferrara) DiDonato. Her two sisters, Joanne and Maxine, are deceased. Her brothers areTony, Rudy, Robert and Eugene.
She got her First Communion from Msgr. Clement Boeke. She and her brothers are devoted members of St Paul Parish.
Ms. D graduated from Garfield High School in 1948 when the school was a power house in every sport which my explain her love of sports.
As for her long nursing career, Ms. D says she continues to be inspired by her hero, the late Mother Teresa in her vocation of nursing.
Printed on the back of the program for the dinner was Mother Teresa’s famous exhortation “It’s Between You and God.”
The final lines contain this advice:
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
Ms. D does seem to follow that advice.
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