Albion Interactive History / People
Kurtz, Nora Coates, 1902
Died 1994
Nora Coates was born in Dublin, Georgia, in 1902, one of twelve children. She moved to Albion at the age of eighteen and married Ivory Lee Kurtz in 1921.
A member of the Bethel Baptist Church, Nora sang in the senior choir and was the first woman to be appointed as a trustee of that church. The mother of six daughters, she was chosen as Mother of the Year by the church in 1948.
She was employed at Sheldon Memorial Hospital as an aide and later as a nursing assistant at Riverside Manor in Battle Creek and the Morgan facility in Marshall.
Nora received the Outstanding Senior Citizen Award in 1974 from the Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club of Albion. She operated a small grocery store on Chestnut Street for several years. She was a member of the True Blue Club for many years.
Source: Albion Public Library, Local History Room
From: Albion AAUW. Some Notable Women of the Albion Area. Albion, Michigan: American Association of University Women. 1998.