Dates

• Existence: 1910 - 2002

Biography

Marie Tener was born May 24, 1910 to John Wesley Tener and Bertha Mable Carr Tener in Riverside, Iowa. Tener graduated from Iowa City High School in 1928 and enrolled in the University of Iowa for a year and a half before moving to Chicago to earn her nursing degree from St. Luke's Hospital.

After leaving St. Luke's in 1934, Tener was offered a job at the St. Louis Children's Hospital, where she was employed until 1939. She left to work at the Missouri Crippled Children's Service as a field nurse. This job required Tener to travel to the homes of disabled children in rural Missouri in order to get them to a treatment facility. Then from 1941 to 1947, Tener operated the Bloser Home for Crippled Children in Marshall, Missouri. She also filled in doing odd jobs when help was scarce. Tener left Bloser Home in 1947 and spent one year as a school nurse before moving to North Carolina. In North Carolina, Tener worked in a summer camp before gaining a position at Duke University Hospital as a surgical instructor and supervisor. However, she worked there only six months before returning to Iowa to care for her sick mother.

In June 1948, Tener found work at the University of Iowa Hospitals. During her seventeen years at the University of Iowa, Tener became director of nursing services. Marie Tener left the University of Iowa Hospitals in 1965 when she married George Havel. The Havels moved to a farm where they raised crops and livestock and grew timber. After her husband died in 1983, Havel moved from the farm into the Riverside Senior Village. From 1984 to 1986, Havel donated her time to writing a weekly article titled the "Village Voice" for the Riverside Current. As of 1997, Havel was still living in Iowa City.

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