Doris Ann Pleva discovered her career in her late 40s and, at the age of 50, graduated from nursing school.
She never boasted, family members said, though she was proud of her accomplishment.
“My mother was very unassuming and not someone who would ever talk about her accomplishments,” said her daughter Diane Tollberg. “She was proud, of course. But when it came right down to it, she just said, `If I want to do something, I’ll go do it.'”
Mrs. Pleva, 76, of Cary, died Tuesday, July 18, of a stroke in Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington. She had been a longtime employee of the hospital.
For 20 years, Mrs. Pleva worked as a registered nurse in the telemetry unit, and Becky Bauer, a co-worker, saw how the patients responded to her.
“Patients loved her,” Bauer said. “She was very caring and listened and was a very good patient advocate. She did what she could to make sure they got better and they got the best care.”
Born one of 12 children in Huntley, Mrs. Pleva’s life was shaped by the Depression, her daughter said.
She graduated as a valedictorian from Huntley High School and went to work as a bookkeeper at the Huntley Farm Store.
“There was no money to go to college,” her daughter said. “She obviously had the ability, but in those days you went to work.”
Mrs. Pleva and her husband, Robert, were married in 1950.
Family members said that after she decided to stay home and raise her five children, she would take in ironing.
When the three older children were able to take care of themselves, she started cleaning houses and took the two younger ones with her.
In 1975, she got a job as an aide at Fair Oaks Nursing Home in Crystal Lake.
There she discovered the joys of nursing, her family said.
Mrs. Pleva took courses for two years at McHenry County College before she entered the nursing program at Elgin Community College.
During those years, she took classes during the day, worked the night shift as an aide at Woodstock Memorial Hospital and cared for her youngest son, who still lived at home.
“Somewhere in there she would sleep when she could,” her daughter said.
After she graduated in 1979, Mrs. Pleva worked at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, then Mary Margaret Manor in Elgin before joining Good Shepherd in 1980.
Mrs. Pleva worked four days a week in the telemetry unit until she was 70.
“She enjoyed it,” her daughter said. “To her it was a way to minister to other people to help them in the hospital.”
After she retired, she shortened her workweek by one day and remained at the hospital in the ambulatory care unit.
She left that unit only after she had a mild heart attack, but returned one day a week to make follow-up calls to patients in the cardiac rehab center.
“She always did her best and did the best job she could for all of her patients. Doris was a very unassuming lady. She didn’t promote herself. She did her work, did her job and did it well,” Bauer said.
In addition to her husband and daughter, survivors include three sons, Richard, Robert and Paul; another daughter, Patricia Barker; four sisters, Jean Kastening, Lois Grasser, Judy Thomas and Patricia Briaton; two brothers, Tom Peterson and William Peterson; and 12 grandchildren.
Visitation will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. Sunday in Cary-Grove Evangelical Free Church, 525 W. Ada St., Cary. Services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Monday in the church.
