Legacy of healing: Generations of family fuel nursing education

Supporting nurses is a family affair for the Stinnetts.

Almost 30 years ago, Mary Martha Stinnett and her late husband, Ed, established an endowed scholarship at Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston to benefit future nurses and honor Ed’s parents, Myrtle and Ed Stinnett, Sr. The fund has blossomed into a multigenerational endeavor, with all three of Mary Martha and Ed’s children now helping to grow the endowment.

Mary Martha remembers her husband’s response when she first suggested creating the Ed and Myrtle Stinnett Scholarship in recognition of her mother-in-law, a licensed vocational nurse. “Well, wife, go do it!” he said cheerfully.

The decision to create the scholarship at Cizik School of Nursing was a natural choice for the couple. While Ed spent most of his career at Austin Industries where he helped build bridges, roads, and docks, Mary Martha dedicated much of her professional life to UTHealth Houston. She began as Associate Director of Development for Cizik School of Nursing and the School of Dentistry at UTHealth Houston but then focused solely on the nursing school, becoming a special assistant to the dean. She later helped found PARTNERS—an organization that provides financial support for nursing scholarships and research—and was its chairman from 2002 to 2003. She also served on the Cizik School of Nursing Advisory Committee and UTHealth Houston Development Board.

Their children—Susan, Randy, and Laura—credit their parents with teaching them the values they treasure today. The trio wanted the UTHealth Houston endowment to honor their parents as well as grandparents, so the family renamed it The Stinnett Family Scholarship in 2020.

“The need for scholarships is more important than ever,” says Susan, a business consultant and retired international tax planner in Meridian, Idaho. “Education helped me do everything I have done in my life. No one who wants to learn should be prohibited from it because of the cost.”

Her grandmother instilled in the family a deep love for the nursing profession through stories she shared of her everyday work adventures.

“Compassion is part of that job,” says Laura, Director of Family Ministries at Atascocita Methodist Church in Humble, Texas. “When you’re in a hospital, nurses are your lifeline.”

Many nurses refer to their job as a “calling,” says Randy, a retired plant nursery professional in Dallas. “We need to support nurses. They meet us at the point of our greatest need.”

The husband of a teacher, Randy strongly advocates for the importance of education and acknowledges the support that made his schooling possible.

“I don’t know how I would have gone to college without my parents helping me and their parents helping them. I know where I came from, and now I cast it along,” says Randy. “I make it a point in my own family budget to find a way to give back. Gratitude is a good thing, but what makes it great is thanks-giving—giving because you are thankful.”

The Stinnett family maintains that philanthropy benefits the donor as well as the recipient.

“You get the joy of giving, and you get the joy of knowing you’re helping someone else. There’s this good feeling you get inside of you that you can’t lose when you donate to help others,” Mary Martha says. “Look how many years ago we first made this scholarship, and here we are still talking about it.”