Anna Laura Cole
Temple, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Anna Laura Cole was born on October 27, 1909, in the farming community of Turney, Texas. Cole finished high school and attended Lon Morris College for a year before enrolling at Scott & White School of Nursing in 1928. After graduating in 1931 as valedictorian, Cole was appointed assistant director of nursing education and then named as a nursing school instructor. In 1933, she became the director of both the nursing school and nursing services for the hospital and clinic at a difficult time for the medical institution and for the profession of nursing. Devastated by the depression, Scott & White weathered many cutbacks while trying to maintain quality medical and nursing care. In 1933, Texas was experiencing a nursing shortage with one registered nurse for every 1,033 persons. Despite the pressures of her post, Cole earned her bachelor of nursing education from the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1940, the first to receive a diploma in the new baccalaureate program. After WWII, Cole was instrumental in efforts to enhance nursing education and served on the state board of nurse examiners and the board of vocational nurse examiners. Under her guidance, schools of vocational nursing opened, training and licensing vocational nurses under the highest standards. In addition to Cole’s administration of the Scott & White Nursing School and her position on numerous medical and educational boards, Cole supervised a nursing dorm on campus and mentored many student nurses over the years. Cole retired in 1969 after 38 years with Scott & White and, over the course of her career, trained nearly 870 nurses. The foundations laid by Cole remain firm in the nursing profession, Bell county and across the state.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Anna Laura Cole grew up in the tiny farming community of Turney and trained as a nurse at Scott & White during the depths of the Great Depression, taking charge of its nursing school in 1933 when Texas had barely one registered nurse for every thousand people. Over a 38-year career she modernized nursing education, helped launch the state's first baccalaureate nursing program, and served on the boards that set standards for licensing vocational nurses. By her 1969 retirement she had trained close to 870 nurses across Central Texas.
Why it matters
Cole's work professionalized nursing in Texas at a moment of shortage and scarcity, showing how one educator's standards could ripple through a region's health care for generations.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Anna Laura Cole was born in 1909 in Turney, a farming community in Central Texas, and came of age in a world where a young woman's professional options were narrow. Nursing was one of the few respected careers open to her, and she pursued it with determination — finishing high school, spending a year at Lon Morris College, and then enrolling at the Scott & White School of Nursing in 1928.
Her training and early career unfolded during the Great Depression, and the timing shaped everything. When she took charge of the nursing school in 1933, the medical institution was reeling like almost every other business in the country, weathering cutbacks while trying to hold the line on the quality of care. Leadership in such a moment meant doing more with less, and being trusted to do it.
Compounding the strain was a genuine crisis of numbers. In 1933 Texas had roughly one registered nurse for every 1,033 people — a shortage that put enormous pressure on the few trained professionals available. Cole stepped into her role not in a season of plenty but in a season of scarcity, which makes what she built all the more striking.
People & events
Cole's rise at Scott & White was swift and earned. She graduated in 1931 as valedictorian of her class, was appointed assistant director of nursing education, then became an instructor, and by 1933 — only two years out of school — she was named director of both the nursing school and the hospital and clinic's nursing services. She was, in effect, running the training of a profession at the very moment that profession was under the most pressure.
She never stopped raising the bar, including for herself. In 1940 she earned her bachelor of nursing education from the University of Texas Medical Branch, becoming the first person to receive a diploma from that new baccalaureate program — a milestone that helped move nursing from apprenticeship toward formal higher education. After World War II she worked to strengthen nursing education more broadly, serving on the state board of nurse examiners and the board of vocational nurse examiners, and helping open schools of vocational nursing that trained and licensed nurses to the highest standards.
But Cole was more than an administrator and board member. She supervised a nursing dorm on campus and personally mentored student nurses year after year. By the time she retired in 1969, after 38 years with Scott & White, she had trained nearly 870 nurses — a career measured not only in titles held but in people shaped.
Its place in the American story
Cole's life traces one of the great transformations in American health care: the professionalization of nursing. Across the 20th century, nursing evolved from informal, on-the-job training into a licensed, standards-driven profession backed by college degrees and state examining boards. Cole didn't just live through that shift in Texas — she helped drive it, from being the first graduate of a new baccalaureate program to sitting on the boards that set licensing standards.
Her work on vocational nursing matters just as much. By helping open vocational nursing schools and insisting they train and license to high standards, she helped build the tiered, credentialed nursing workforce that hospitals across the country still rely on. Standards set in one educator's classrooms and committee rooms have a way of rippling outward for decades.
There's a larger American lesson in her career, too: that institutions are often held together in their worst moments by capable people who never become famous. She took command during the Depression and a severe nursing shortage and used the crisis not as an excuse for lower standards but as a reason to raise them. The health of a whole region benefited from that choice.
If you visit
This is a memorial in Temple, so come prepared to honor a person rather than tour a site. The best way to visit is to read the inscription slowly and let the arc of one long, steady career sink in — from a farm girl in Turney to the woman who trained nearly 870 nurses.
Temple grew as a medical center, and that context is part of the feeling of the place. As you stand at the marker, consider how much of a city's identity can be built by educators and caregivers whose names most passersby have never heard. Cole's legacy is woven into the region's hospitals and the careers of the nurses she taught.
Cole pairs naturally with the broader themes of women's history and education on a Central Texas drive. You won't find posted hours or a grand structure to photograph here — the reward is quieter. Take a moment to think about the nearly 870 individuals she trained, and the patients each of them went on to care for, and you'll leave with a sense of how far one determined life can reach.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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