Bernadette Pruitt
Bertha and Mack Lively, a domestic and truck driver, created a home in Detroit’s East Side Black Bottom community. In the fall of 1939 Bertha became pregnant. Her second pregnancy, the thirty-year-old did not realize she had three babies growing inside her womb. On May 30, 1940, Bertha Lively at Herman Kiefer Hospital delivered three babies: Gwendolyn, Gloria, and Malcolm (Mother Bertha Lively also registered to vote while in the hospital and in time for the 1940 presidential election!).
Herman Kiefer, the city’s public health hospital, made it a mission to combat infant mortality, a common problem within the Black community. The smallest of the triplets, Gloria, almost did not survive. Weighing only two pounds and small enough to fit into an adult hand, the newborn suffered from numerous challenges, most notably brain and eye development. After two months of neonatal care, the two-month-old came home to her family. Although Gloria remained fragile, she fought partial blindness, Raynaud’s Phenomenon (poor circulation), learning challenges, and psychological trauma. She grew up into an inquisitive, rambunctious little girl. Gloria and her siblings had a bond that formed before their births. Thus, they gravitated toward one another as toddlers and preschoolers, playing typical childhood games of the wartime-era and postwar America. They loved playing hide-and-seek, hopscotch, jump rope, jacks, cops and robbers, etc.
As the trio entered primary school at Columbian Elementary School after Labor Day 1945, along with their niece and nephew Arnett and Leon Collins, the children of their eldest sister Catherine Collins (1924-2019), they blossomed into their own identities and developed friendships and broader relationships. This would not be easy for little Gloria whom classmates teased, especially for her thick eyeglasses. Relying on an inward strength, Gloria never let the teasing get to her! Gloria never allowed her impairments to thwart her independence. The eye problem of course continued to plague the child. Once at the dinner table she fainted. After her mother rushed her to the hospital doctors discovered the youngster needed special eyeglasses. Determined to succeed in school, she did fine. Perhaps she experienced the typical middle-child anxieties of not receiving enough attention and affection. She nevertheless adored her siblings. It never bothered Gloria that she did not have the mathematical and scientific mind of her baby brother or the musical abilities and vivacious spirit of her older sister Gwen. In fact, she admired them immensely! She learned to read and passed her other subjects attending special schools devoted to students with various disabilities. In school she carved out her own fascinating niches of temperament and peace. Gloria graduated from Charles E. Chadsey High School in 1959, one year after her siblings.
Gloria Lively was unquestionably different from many other children and teens. She never had set boundaries, at least in her mind. The unconventional young woman realized she had a passion for helping others. After high school she joined Columbian Medical and began a nurse’s aide training program. She began working with mental patients and developed a bond with the group. Gloria Lively truly loved serving others. In the mid-1960s she began working at Detroit Osteopathic Hospital in Highland Park, Michigan. She remained at the hospital for twenty-four years. Eventually working with cancer patients, Gloria made people feel special. She listened to her patients, sang with them, bathed them, fed patients, and wheeled them around for tests and when discharged. During blizzards she often volunteered to work double shifts when the hospital found itself short-staffed. Patients and family members wrote letters to her supervisors praising the nurse’s aide for her kindness and compassion. Pruitt won Employee of the Month often and worked at the hospital for 25 years until her health deteriorated.
