A Lifetime of Care: A Salem Couple’s Story

Mary Lou Brooks has called Salem, Missouri, home for most of her 73 years. Her life began in crisis, but also in care.

Born 6 weeks early in August 1952, Mary Lou weighed just 2 pounds, 3 ounces. On the same day her mother learned she was pregnant, she also learned she had uterine cancer. To give her baby a chance, she decided treatment had to wait. When early labor came, Dr. Alice Crosby, at Hart Hospital in Salem, arranged for a transfer to the brand-new Phelps County Memorial Hospital (now Phelps Health) in Rolla. There, a tiny premature baby was placed in a simple incubator and fought to survive for more than 6 weeks.

“I’ve been told that two doctors pronounced me dead,” Mary Lou said. “But Dr. Crosby wouldn’t give up. She rode with me in whatever form of transportation it was—maybe a hearse, which often doubled as an ambulance in those days.

“I’ve always said it was a miracle that I survived,” she added. “They [her care team at Phelps County Memorial Hospital] kept me alive when I shouldn’t have made it.”

Mary Lou’s mother died at age 37, when Mary Lou was 15 months old, leaving her grandmother to raise her and her siblings in a small, drafty house in Salem.

“We were dirt poor,” she said. 

Her grandmother grew a huge garden—large enough to fill what is now a parking lot—and neighbors often stepped in to help when money and food ran short. Every bit of kindness stayed with Mary Lou.

That early gratitude has shaped her entire life and later led her into nursing, a second career she began in her late 30s. 

“I just wanted to do something different,” she said. 

Mary Lou earned her degree through Lincoln University after riding a bus from Rolla to Jefferson City for classes. For more than 20 years, she cared for patients in hospitals across Missouri.

But her ties to Phelps Health didn’t end with her own birth story.

Her husband, Dale, also credits his life to the health system. In 1968, at just 23, he survived a head-on collision on Highway 72. His first wife, also in the vehicle, succumbed to her injuries. He arrived at Phelps County Memorial Hospital with a collapsed lung, a fractured sternum and a broken jaw. He spent days in a coma and weeks in intensive care.

“They [the hospital] definitely saved his life,” Mary Lou said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

In the years since, the Brooks family has continued to rely on Phelps Health for specialists, surgeries and everyday care that helps them stay close to home.

“We appreciate having good doctors and providers right here,” she said. “Dr. E [Dr. Efstratiadis], Dr. Gautam, Dr. Voight, Sandra Headrick—they’ve all taken great care of us.”

As a former nurse, the Salem resident knows how much healthcare has changed. She marvels at modern neonatal care, where tiny babies like she once was would now go to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) staffed with specialized nurses and advanced machines that help newborns breathe, stay warm and fight infection. 

“Back then, they just had a warmer,” she said. “Today, the technology is amazing.”

Mary Lou also knows what matters most never changes: compassion, connection and listening.

“A smile and eye contact mean everything,” she said. 

She believes care feels different—and better—when caregivers know your story before they walk into the room.

Mary Lou has seen firsthand how a strong local health system can shape a community. From lifesaving trauma care to the Phelps Health Delbert Day Cancer Institute, she sees Phelps Health as a partner not just in medicine, but in hope.

Reflecting on Phelps Health’s 75th anniversary, she sums it up simply: “Trust Phelps Health— they do amazing things here.”

Since 1951, Phelps Health has grown alongside families like the Brookses—and we’re honored to continue doing so, with purpose, with heart and with you in mind.