Marianne Taft Marcus, Ed.D., R.N., F.A.A.N of the University of Texas at Houston School of Nursing served as the John P. McGovern Distinguished Professor of Addiction Nursing and Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Education and Research. In these roles she explored mindfulness and meditation as methods of reducing stress for individuals in recovery and brought together people from diverse backgrounds to support prevention at the community-level. During her time at UT she also served as Chair of the Department of Nursing Systems and Director of the Master of Nursing Education Track, among other roles.

Following her studies at Columbia University, Dr. Marcus worked as a nurse at New York’s Presbyterian Hospital. After taking time to raise her children, she began teaching nursing and added two more graduate degrees from Columbia. In 1980 she returned to Houston, enrolling in the Education doctoral program at the University of Houston and beginning her longstanding affiliation with the UT Health Science Center.

Dr. Marcus received numerous recognitions throughout her career. Just some examples: in 1994 she was elected to a Fellowship in the American Academy of Nursing; in 1998 she was awarded the John P. McGovern Award for Excellence in Medical Education presented by the Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance use and Addiction (AMERSA); and in 2006 she was elected to the University of Texas Academy of Health Science Education.

Dr. Marcus was born October 25, 1932 at Hermann Hospital in Houston. Her mother had been a nurse at Hermann, and her grandfather Gordon Avery Taft was on the Hermann Estate Board while the hospital was being built. Marianne Marcus died on January 16, 2022.

Dorothy Otto, EdD, MSN, RN, ANEF was an Associate Professor of Nursing Systems at the Cizik School of Nursing at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
When the University of Texas School of Nursing in Houston was created in 1972, she came on board as a founding faculty member. She also served as acting dean from 1975-1977. Continuing to teach until her retirement in 2015, Otto became a go-to source on the history of the School.
Otto was a world traveler and combined this interest with her professional life. For roughly a decade, she served as Academic Leader for Nursing International Journeys—trips that introduced colleagues to health care practices in places like Egypt, Russia, China, and elsewhere. She had a particular interest in Florence Nightingale and visited the Nightingale Museums in London and Istanbul.
Interested in the history of nursing, Otto amassed a collection of nursing-related stamps from the U.S. and other countries.
Otto parlayed her collections, travels, and long history at the University of Texas in Houston into lectures and presentations about the history of nursing, as well as its development in Houston and Texas.
Dr. Otto received her BSN from the University of Houston in 1954; her MSN from Texas Woman's University in 1971; and her EdD from the University of Houston in 1985. She started her nursing career in McAllen, Texas, before coming to Houston in 1972.
Dorothy Otto died January 4, 2020.

Source: https://www.uth.edu/news/story.htm?id=ca4f2d0e-ce7c-4bee-9130-6ed37226d990

Leta Elizabeth Denham was born in 1895 in Hempstead, Waller County, Texas, and was one of sixteen children. She attended the Baptist Sanitarium and Hospital Training School for Nurses in Houston, Texas, graduating from the program in 1919. The commencement ceremony was held at First Baptist Church in Houston on May 29, 1919. After graduating from nursing school Leta Denham went to China to fulfill her life-long dream of working as a missionary. She served as a medical missionary in Yingtak, China from 1921 to 1922.

Leta Denham married Marcus Jackson Scott in June 1921, and died in Langley, Washington in 1982.

Dr. Mara Madeleine Baun was born March 5, 1942, and has lived in Missouri City since 1973.

John Roberts Phillips was born on February 28, 1904 in Quantico, Maryland. He graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1923 and completed his Master of Surgery at the University of Minnesota in 1931. He received a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic from 1929 to 1933. In 1929, he married Rebecca Jane Hall. In 1933, Phillips started his own surgical practice in Houston and served as the Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Texas and as the Assistant Professor of Surgery at Baylor University in Houston, Texas. He authored and co-authored over 124 articles published in various medical journals. Phillips retired in 1967 and died April 19, 1983.

Rebecca Jane Hall Phillips was born on December 14, 1903 in Maryland. She became a registered nurse at the University of Maryland. She served as a surgical nurse from 1927-1929 in Maryland, as a nurse at the Mayo Clinic from 1927-1932, and then starting in 1933, served as the surgical nurse, office manager, and public relations manager for her husband, John Roberts Phillips’ practice in Houston, TX.

Sharon K. Ostwald was born January 6, 1941 in Pearland, Texas.

Dorothea Ellen Kassell was born in Spokane, Washington, on January 29, 1906. The family moved to Chicago before 1910 and then to Llano County before 1920. 1970 Texas State Association of Occupational Nurses Achievement Award. She graduated from St. David’s Hospital School of Nursing in Austin, Texas, in 1927; the 1940 census said she had two years of high school. She was a nurse on duty on the Lower Colorado River Authority’s Buchanan Dam project near Burnet, Texas, in the mid-1930s. She worked for ARMCO Steel in Houston for 26 years, 25 as head nurse, before retiring January 29, 1971. She was in occupational nursing for “over 32” years at the time. Kassell was active at the local and state level in the American Association of Industrial Nurses (now the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses). She was treasurer of the Houston chapter for 15 years, served two terms on the Texas AIN Board of Directors, and served for awhile as the Texas AIN historian. She won the Texas State Association of Occupational Nurses Achievement Award in 1970. Kassell died on February 3, 1991, and is buried in the Kassell Cemetery in Llano County.