Long time Grass Valley resident, Alice Crow, died peacefully on May 2, 2020.
She was 100 years old. Born Stella Alice Baker, she was the middle of 11 children growing up in extreme poverty in rural Sangamon County, Illinois. Along with her siblings, she attended a nearby one-room schoolhouse through 8th grade. Living too far from the closest high school, and with no transportation, her life-long dream of being a nurse seemed very unlikely. But she had one thing going for her: Determination. At the age of 14, arrangements were made for her to live with and work for a family that owned a dairy farm much closer to the nearest high school. She had to get up at 4:00 AM to wash out milk cans before going to school for the day. She was exhausted most of the time. The school principal, Franklin Short, took note of her situation. He and his wife asked her to move in with them and their three young sons. Alice graduated from New Berlin Township High School in 1937; the first in her family to do so.
Once she turned 18, the Shorts loaned her the necessary tuition to attend the Missouri Baptist Hospital School of Nursing in St. Louis, Missouri. After graduating in 1941, she was licensed as a registered nurse in the state of Missouri.
Following the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, Alice went to the Red Cross and told them to send her where they needed her. They advised her to join the Army. After completing basic training, she was stationed at Fitzsimons General Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado. It was there that she met her future husband, 2nd Lt. Raymond Crow, who was recuperating from encephalitis.
After she was discharged from the Army in 1944, they moved back to his native state of California. She continued her nursing career there at Pacific State Hospital, a mental hospital just outside the city of Pomona. She eventually went to work at Pomona Valley Community Hospital.
In 1973, she and her husband moved to Grass Valley, where she continued to work as a nurse at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital until her retirement in the early 80’s.
She and her husband were active members of the First Baptist Church in Grass Valley and, for over a decade, did volunteer work at Beale Air Force Base in Yuba County.
She is survived by one brother, Russell Baker of Illinois, her four children: Linda Moran of Lincoln, CA; Jeanne Huebert of Simi Valley, CA; Raym Crow of Washington, VA; and Steve Crow of Grass Valley. She is also survived by eight grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren.
