Dexter welcomes special guest as a result of floods

Noreen Hyslop photo Ninety-seven-year-old Nora White was one of three residents of a Chaffee nursing care facility who was temporarily housed in Dexter last week until flood waters subsided. She quickly won the hearts of residents and staff at Dexter's Cypress Point Health Care facility and will not soon be forgotten.

She is without question one of the most independent 97-year-olds around. Nora White has always lived independently until a recent accident in which she suffered a broken left leg left her dependent upon someone else's care. It was a situation with which the feisty little great-great-great grandmother was not pleased at all.

"I've always taken care of myself," she says. "Lived by myself for years and took care of my own needs."

Family members thought it best for Nora to recuperate in a nursing care facility and in early January of this year, she took up residence at an Americare nursing care facility in Chaffee.

"It's just temporary," she explains, "until I'm back on my feet. I still have an apartment in Scott City to go back to."

All went well with Nora as she spent quiet time at the Chaffee home mending, until last week when the rains came. And they came and they came, until the high waters that had escaped the Diversion Channel threatened the Chaffee Nursing Center and a decision was made to move patients to other centers in the area.

Dexter's Cypress Point was fortunate enough to take in Nora and two others from the Chaffee center. A Dexter employee of the center headed north and retrieved the three, returning them to Dexter in the care of John Langley, Cypress Point's administrator.

Nora was delivered to the Dexter center and introduced to another patient, Ruby Miller, who quickly showed her the ropes and introduced her to other residents.

By Thursday morning, Nora had become somewhat of a celebrity around the center, instantly winning the hearts of all with whom she came in contact.

"I just love it here," she told visitors and the feeling was mutual.

"She is just one of the most spry and sharp-witted ladies I've had the pleasure of meeting," says Cypress Point's Activities Director Sue Long. "We wish we could keep her."

Nora White spent most of her life in the Campbell area and that's where she still refers to as "home." She married young and she and her first husband, Frank Dunlap, had two daughters, Mildred and Maxine. Life as she knew it, however, was forever changed on a fateful day in 1939 when Frank drowned in the high waters of the Mississippi after the barge he was on tipped in flood waters and tossed him to his death in the muddy waters.

"So, you see," Nora explains, "I get really scared when the waters come up. My daughters and I always had a difficult time after we lost their dad even if it flooded a little."

It was ten years later that Nora remarried. She shared the next 31 years with Norval White, a Malden barber for many, many years. He died in the late 1970s. She also lost her first daughter, Mildred, last year. Maxine, her surviving daughter, resides in Scott City and is herself in her seventies.

When she witnessed the waters rising around the Chaffee facility on Wednesday, she grew concerned.

"I could see out the window and I could see that the water was getting closer, but I really didn't know that we were in danger of it entering the building until we were told we were going to be taken to Dexter."

Chaffee's loss was clearly Dexter's gain, if even just for an overnight stay. After a day full of fun at Cypress Point, including an Easter Parade and a new permanent for her hair, the spry little lady from Campbell was whisked off once again, returning to her temporary Chaffee home. Cypress Point employees and residents, however, will long remember the diminutive charmer from Campbell who graced their halls for just a day.

Noreen Hyslop may be reached via email at nhyslop@dailystatesman.com