OBITUARY: Died June 21, 2016 - Isabella Mary Laude, PhD, 85, of Babson Park, passed away peacefully at her home, with her family by her side. She was born April 16, 1931 in Sagamore, PA to the late Joseph Matthew and Isabella Mary (Cherney) Chauby. She was a member of Holy Spirit Catholic Church.

Throughout her career, Dr. Laude filled multiple roles as a nurse educator and administrator, director of a professional association, and owner of various commercial interests. She was a volunteer leader in numerous nonprofit organizations and author of several books. She loved playing the piano, dancing, crocheting, swimming, cooking and travel. Music was her life. She served in several leadership positions in the Florida Federation of Music Clubs (FFMC) and National Federation of Music Clubs, including president of Lake Wales Music Club, president of FFMC and Bay Ridge District, feature writer and editor of Music Clubs Magazine for twelve years, founder and chairman of Florida Fellows, FFMC Dance Chairman, among others, and she initiated the Frances Rands Beery Memorial Award in Classical Ballet. She was a 50-year member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and served as president of the Lake Wales Branch of AAUW. She was a founding member of Lake Wales Little Theatre. She wrote Amazing Women to describe the pioneers of the Lake Wales AAUW.

She wrote music reviews of concerts for the Lake Wales News and Daily Highlander. She penned a monthly column in the Journal of the Florida Medical Association, and was a consumer columnist for The Ledger for two years.

Dr. Laude was the "Sarah Bernhardt" and class valedictorian of Shannock Valley High School in Yatesboro, Pennsylvania. Her first paying job during her high school years was writing the Society News on Sagamore, Pennsylvania, for the Indiana Evening Gazette and the Kittanning Leader-Times.

While a student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, she authored journal and newsletter articles. As director of post-anesthesia recovery units at the Cleveland Clinic Hospital, she organized the intensive care unit for the first open-heart surgery in the 1950s. She wrote a Procedure Manual for Recovery Rooms and Intensive Care Units and was cited in the clinic’s history of nursing, Without Whose Aid, as one of its nurse pioneers.

While at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Laude met and married the love of her life, Dr. Walter Laude. They moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she began working in the Richmond Memorial Recovery Room and writing another procedure manual. She immersed herself in activities with the American Red Cross as a nurse volunteer teaching classes, serving as an officer and as a board member. She authored a manual, Teaching Volunteers to Assist the Adult Blind (as her master’s thesis in rehabilitation counseling); A Babysitting Manual; and Enjoying the Road to Fatherhood. In addition to the Red Cross, she served on various other community boards. In the 1960s Dr. Laude was health consultant to the Richmond Catholic Diocese where she authored a text and curriculum guide for teaching Human Sexuality to eighth grade students and their parents. In the 1980s she wrote her doctoral dissertation Ambulatory Surgery, Passing Fancy or Future Trend.

Dr. Laude was on the faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education and Johnston Willis School of Nursing. She served on the Comprehensive Council on Health Planning, National Task Force on Women in Service to the Handicapped, White House Commission on Aging, the White House Commission on Children and Youth, and Virginia Medicare Advisory Council.

She is survived by her husband of 59 years, Dr. Walter Laude; daughters: Maria, Cecilia, and Monica; sons: Christopher of Hilo and Michael of San Diego; sisters: Betty Griffin of Lakeland, Clarissa Roubos of Haines City, brother Joseph Chauby of Cleveland, OH; and grandchildren: Gregory, Ian and Walter Brendan.

A Memorial Mass will be held at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Lake Wales on Thursday, June 30, 2016 at 11:00 am, with Father David Vargas officiating.

Marion Nelson Funeral Home is in charge of all arrangements.