Services for Flora Cottingham Marks, 88 of Columbia, were 10 a.m. Friday, March 21, at the First United Methodist Church in Columbia, with the Rev. Pam Roy, officiating.

Flora Cottingham was born December 23, 1914 and passed away on Tuesday, March 18, 2003, after a lengthy illness. She married Ernest Maurice Cottingham on April 22, 1943. They had one child, Maurice Cottingham.

Flora Cottingham was an active member of the Columbia United Methodist Church, teaching Sunday School, singing in the choir, and opening her home to Methodist Youth Fellowship activities.

For more than three decades, her driving passion ws nursing. Flora Cottingham was a registered nurse, studying under the sisters at Saint Francis Sanitarium in Monroe and received her R.N. on September 4, 1938. While she worked for a short while as a hospital nurse, she will be remembered most as an advocate of public health and as a compassionate, dedicated nurse. Early in her career, her nursing supervisor received a letter of commendation from a colleague in another agency saying "Mrs. Cottingham has succeeded where our department and previous health nurses have failed. She has an understanding of people which many lack." That characterization held firm throughout her nursing career. In over 30 years of service, she immunized thousands of Caldwell Parish school children and spearheaded efforts to get treatment for those with tuberculosis and services for those with polio. She retired in 1975.

Flora Cottingham is survived by a son, Ernest Maurice Cottingham of Arlington, VA; four sisters, Ethel Whitlock of Columbia, Bertha Mae Wooley of Tyler, TX; Lola Brensing of Pensacola, FL, and Onnie Pinion of Avinger, TX.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Berry Lee and Althea Belle Fisher; three brothers, Archie, Elfin, and B. L., and a sister, Irby June Meredith. Special friends and caregivers include Lola Fredrick, Patty Coker, Brenda Parker, and Mary Holland, all of Columbia.

Pallbearers were Jim Fisher, Donald Berry Wilson and friends Charlie Simons, Charles Thompson, Scott Meredith, and Aaron McGuire. For thos preferring memorials may make them to the Columbia United Methodist Church.

Published in The Caldwell Watchman (Columbia, LA), Wednesday, March 26, 2003