Anne Foy Baker award
The Anne Foy Baker Award
Established April 2005
Anne Foy Baker (1914-2001) was the founder of Mary Mahoney Registered Nurses Club (now Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Organization). In 1949 Anne and a schoolmate, Celestine Thomas, found the names and telephone numbers of eleven other Negro registered nurses who lived and worked in Seattle. They called and invited each nurse to attend a meeting at Anne's home. In a single afternoon, 13 nurses met one another and agreed to form the Mary Mahoney Registered Nurses Club.
The main purpose for establishing this organization was to promote the personal and professional development of members. Anne remained an active leader of this organization throughout her lifetime. She referred to her practice of nursing as a calling similar to the way men in her time referred to being called to the ministry. Anne shifted the focus of her nursing practice to reflect her physical and mental abilities. When she became bedridden in 1998 she established a telephone ministry, where she provided prayer and spiritual healing to anyone who called her for these services.
Throughout her lifetime, Anne demonstrated a commitment to professional nursing and to our professional nurses' organization where she exhibited vision, leadership and creativity. This award will be made to future members who demonstrate at least two of the characteristics that Anne exhibited throughout her lifetime along with any others that reflect the highest standards of professionalism in nursing.
Anne departed this life on October 3, 2001.
This award has been given to two founders who have exhibited the characteristics associated with our founder. They are:
Gertrude Robinson Dawson; and
Mary Davis Hooks
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