Whenever David Anderson feels tired or frustrated, he hears his mother’s voice telling him to keep going. He silently reminds himself: If she did it by herself with six kids, what can he complain about?

Helen Anderson-Cokley was the “epitome of hard work,” her son said. She valued discipline and personal responsibility for one’s successes and failures. That attitude guided her life, he said, starting with her decision, as a teenager, to trade her South Carolina farm for city life in Baltimore and dreams of nursing.

“She was very big in doing what she could,” he said. “I never really felt like I was missing out. We didn’t have a whole lot, but she made sure you felt like you had everything that you needed.”

She grew softer as she grew older, her son said, because she didn’t need to work as hard for her children. She’d raised them to be self-sufficient. In retirement, she finally got to relax and slow down, to spend the rest of her days enjoying time with friends, family members and church peers.

Anderson-Cokley, who worked for decades as a registered nurse in Baltimore hospitals and schools, died Christmas Eve of complications from heart disease. She was 91.

She was born April 1, 1934, to Eddie and Catherine Wilson Lee. Their farmhouse was usually full: Anderson-Cokley was the second of five children, and her parents almost always had guests over for meals. She fondly recalled her days in the rural South, even though she wanted something different for herself.

Anderson-Cokley always liked helping other people, but she didn’t decide on nursing until she came across a glossy brochure in high school featuring photos of Black nurses and doctors. Her father took her down dirt roads to go into town and buy clothes, then sent her on a train to Baltimore.

She caught a bus to start nursing school at Provident Hospital but got off at the wrong stop. It was cold, and she questioned her decision to move north. She shivered as she spoke to God: “Lord, if you send me the right bus, I’ll stay,” recalled her daughter, Janet Anderson.

A little while later, a bus pulled up to the stop, bound for the hospital. Off she went.

It was a three-year nursing program, and Anderson-Cokley loved every minute. She explored Baltimore, singing karaoke at local venues and trying Chinese food for the first time. And one day at the hospital, she saw a handsome young man by the elevators. Twidlyn Anderson was a physician resident with an interesting accent — Jamaican, she later learned — and they started dating.

The couple married and moved to Catonsville. They had six children, Sharon, Janet, Beverly, Philip, John and David. For many years, life was a storybook — the kids hung out with neighbors and played sports at the local recreation center. Anderson-Cokley volunteered as a campfire leader. Her work schedule was demanding, so she spent any time off with her kids, her daughter said.

During the holidays, Anderson-Cokley would roll out Christmas cookie dough and let the children choose which shape to cut. They’d coat some with sprinkles.

But life also brought its challenges. Twidlyn grew sick, and some family outings became difficult. Anderson-Cokley sometimes wrangled six children alone to South Carolina for family picnics and cousin time.

After her husband died in 1971, her mindset immediately became: “I have to take care of my kids,” Janet Anderson said.

She still talked of their father all the time, proud that she had chosen such a good man as her husband. She fondly called the children “Andy’s kids.” But the circumstances made her a single mother of six at 37, trying to make ends meet.

Back then, her kids thought of her as stern, but time gave them an appreciation of what she went through, Janet Anderson said. She was active in church and made sure the children attended every Sunday. She made time for family meals and taught her kids to rely on each other. She signed them up for instrument lessons and other extracurricular activities.

Anderson-Cokley worked as a registered nurse at several Baltimore hospitals, including Lutheran and St. Agnes. She was among the first Black nurses at Lutheran, her daughter said, but never thought of herself as breaking barriers.

“It was just her personality to take care of people,” Janet Anderson said. Her mother often talked of her childhood days on the farm, when she’d care for sick animals and bond with her own nurturing parents.

After several years at hospitals, Anderson-Cokley started working for the city health department as a community nurse in schools. The switch was a practical and easy decision: Her work hours became more regular, the pay was better and she had more time for her kids. Plus, she was able to help more children.

Approaching age 60 in the 1990s, she decided to return to school for a bachelor’s degree from Towson State University. It was tough, and sometimes she wondered whether it was worth it, her daughter said. But she wanted to show her children the benefits of hard work.

She also reconnected with a childhood friend, Theodore Cokley, and they married in 1996. They traveled and went to church together. They joined a bowling league and bought matching shirts with their names on them. After twice telling her children she would retire before backing out, she finally did in the early 2000s.

Retirement gave her more time with her grandchildren, especially Janet’s daughter, Latia Few. Few loved swapping stories and talking about spirituality with her grandmother, and they bonded over music. Few remembers her grandmother buying her first cassette tape for the girl band TLC.

Her grandmother was selfless and kind, Few said, like when she provided down payment money for a house when Few was 21.

“She had this softness about her, this safety about her,” Few said. “She just seemed to be a very fearless woman, because she believed so much in God and the spiritual realm, that everything will work itself out the way it did.”

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