08/27/2026
Remembering Mary McLeod: 59 Years of Service, Friendship and a Life Woven Into CCH
There are people who work at a hospital, and then there are people who become part of its history.
Mary McLeod was part of the history of Crenshaw Community Hospital.
For 59 years, she worked within its walls. She served as an LPN in Med Surg, surgery, case management and behavioral health. She retired only last year, closing a career that stretched across generations of coworkers, patients and families.
But the people who knew her best do not talk first about the length of her career.
They talk about Mary.
They talk about the woman who knew what she wanted. The nurse who expected the job to be done and done well. The friend who became family. The woman who would quietly notice when a patient needed clothes or shoes and find a way to get them.
They remember shopping trips, lunch dates, Christmas presents, blonde wigs, cruises, mountains and even a daily teaspoon of mustard.
And on South Wing, they remember their Queen.
Dexter had known Mary almost his entire life. They rode the school bus together in 1965, long before they would share decades of connection to Crenshaw Community Hospital.
He remembers her as friendly and kind, but also as a woman who knew exactly what she wanted.
Mary was an only child and had an independent spirit. She could be particular, Dexter recalled, but she was also flexible. Through the years, a childhood friendship became something much closer to family.
“She was like a sister to me,” he said.
Candy remembers that relationship well. To Mary, Dexter was her little brother. Their bond became part of the rhythm of hospital life. They ate lunch together regularly, always settling into the same chairs in the hospital cafeteria.
Candy’s own story with Mary began 21 years ago on North Wing Med Surg.
She remembers very quickly learning exactly who Mary was.
“She was not a shy person and she was very opinionated,” Candy recalled. “If she wanted you to do something, you did it!”
It is a memory shared with affection, because Candy also saw another side of Mary over those years.
She describes her as one of the most generous people she has ever known.
If Mary saw a patient who needed help, she did not simply notice. She responded. She would collect money. She would find clothing. She would find shoes.
She found a way to help.
Eventually, Mary stopped being simply Candy’s coworker and became part of her family.
They went shopping together in Dothan and Florida. Mary loved Belk and Alfred Dunner clothing. And when she began losing her hair, Candy remembers her meeting that chapter of life in distinctly Mary fashion.
She “rocked her blonde wigs.”
Christmas was another thing Mary loved.
She delighted in buying gifts for the people she considered family and showing her coworkers what she had picked out. She talked about what she planned to cook for the holidays.
Angie Thomas and Greg Sanders were like her children, Candy said, and Angie’s children and grandchildren were her babies.
Mary’s influence on Candy extended into her career as well.
“She taught me a lot about case management,” Candy said.
It is one of the quieter pieces of Mary’s legacy at CCH. After nearly six decades in healthcare, what she knew did not stay with her. She passed it along.
Latesha experienced that same willingness to teach.
She worked alongside Mary on South Wing and remembers her as a sweet woman, but one whose kindness should never be confused with a lack of determination.
Mary worked hard.
And she expected the people around her to work hard too.
“She was definitely known for getting the job done around the hospital and making sure that you did,” Latesha said.
Mary taught Latesha many things over the years, including how to manually score things when needed. The lessons became part of how another employee learned to do her own job, another small way Mary’s 59 years of experience were passed to the generation working beside her.
But one of Latesha’s clearest memories of Mary has nothing to do with nursing.
It is a teaspoon of mustard.
Every morning Mary worked, she would come into Latesha’s office and take a teaspoon.
At the time, it was simply something Mary did.
Now it is one of those wonderfully ordinary details that becomes precious because of the person attached to it.
The familiar footsteps into an office.
The same little routine.
A teaspoon of mustard.
Another morning with Ms. Mary.
Latesha said Mary was dedicated and meant the world to both the hospital and the people who worked there.
“To know her was to love her,” she said.
And her importance did not end at the hospital doors.
“She was a pillar within the community.”
Then there is South Wing.
Ask Portia about Mary, and one title rises immediately to the surface.
The Queen of South Wing.
“Although she stayed behind the nurses station, she ran that unit,” Portia recalled.
It is difficult to imagine a more fitting description of the woman her coworkers have described. Mary did not need a grand title to establish her presence.
People simply knew.
They knew who would make sure things got done.
They knew who had an opinion.
They knew who cared.
And they knew who was watching over South Wing.
“Everyone loved her and she loved us as well,” Portia said.
But Portia’s final words about Mary reveal something even more personal.
“She was Ms. Mary to you all, but she was LimeAria to me.”
To the hundreds and perhaps thousands of people who crossed paths with Mary McLeod during 59 years at Crenshaw Community Hospital, she carried many names and filled many roles.
She was Ms. Mary.
She was a nurse.
She was a teacher.
She was a coworker who became family.
She was Dexter’s sister and, as Candy remembers it, Dexter was her little brother.
She was someone who taught Candy about case management and taught Latesha skills she would carry forward in her own work.
She was the woman who noticed a patient needed shoes and went looking for shoes.
She was the shopping companion who loved Belk.
She was the woman who rocked her blonde wigs.
She was the Christmas shopper excited to show everyone what she had bought.
She was the friend who loved cruises and travel.
Dexter remembers that she had been to Hawaii, but the mountains held a particularly special place in her heart.
Her church family was her family.
At home, there was her little dog, Emmie.
And on South Wing, she was the Queen.
For Portia Pitts, she was LimeAria.
Fifty nine years is an extraordinary amount of time to devote to one hospital.
Consider what changes over nearly six decades. Coworkers retire. New employees arrive. Departments change. Medicine advances. Buildings change. Entire generations pass through the doors.
Mary remained..
Her career became part of the timeline of Crenshaw Community Hospital itself.
But a legacy like hers is not really contained in an employment record.
It lives elsewhere.
It lives in something Candy knows about case management because Mary taught her.
It lives in something Latesha knows how to do because Mary showed her.
It lives in patients who once received something they needed because Mary noticed.
It lives in Dexter remembering a school bus in 1965 and decades later still describing her as his sister.
It lives in a hospital cafeteria and two familiar chairs.
It lives in shopping trips to Dothan and Florida.
In Christmas presents.
In blonde wigs.
In a teaspoon of mustard.
In the halls of South Wing.
And it lives in the people who still instinctively call her their Queen.
When Mary retired last year, Candy said they could still call her. They could still visit.
Now, she says, the loss feels overwhelming.
“A part of our team and family is missing.”
Perhaps that is what happens when someone spends 59 years becoming woven into a place.
You notice the space she leaves behind.
Mary McLeod gave nearly six decades of her life to Crenshaw Community Hospital. But the stories shared by Dexter, Candy, Latesha and Portia make clear that she gave something even greater to the people inside it.
She gave them pieces of herself.
And those pieces remain.
For 59 years, Mary McLeod was part of Crenshaw Community Hospital.
She always will be.
