“I had at least one or two that constantly told me that I would never make it. That made me more determined to prove them wrong.” Dr. Delores Saddler spoke with AFRAM News to tell her life story of resilience. She was raised in Acres Homes and is pillar in the Houston community, her life has been no easy feat, but she has managed to overcome the challenges and obstacles. The oldest of seven children she was tasked with carrying responsibility at an early age. “I helped raise and discipline my siblings” she said.
Dr. Saddler’s upbringing was full of humble beginnings. “We didn’t have indoor plumbing until
I was about 13, she said.” She lived in a 3-bedroom home built by her father; she shared a room with
her two sisters and her four brothers shared a room. Her family had to bathe in the kitchen and the house often leaked when it rained. “We used pretty much all of the pots and pans that we had to sort of catch the water. When it was cold outside, it was cold inside for the most part.” Saddler’s father always encouraged her and her siblings to go to college, Saddler finished Valedictorian of her graduating class but during her junior year in high school she had a baby, and her school George Washington Carver High School refused to acknowledge her as Valedictorian.
Dr. Saddler knew she’d always wanted to become a nurse but because of her family’s finances she initially allowed it to be just a dream. “I always wanted from the time that I can remember, I always wanted to be a nurse. That’s always been my dream. And of course, since we had no money, and since I had no access to a scholarship or financial aid, I sort of put that in the back of my mind” she said. Still wanting to purse higher education, she decided she wanted to become a math teacher, but after a calculus class at the University of Houston, she quickly realized that is not what she wanted to do.
Saddler began pursuing nursing school and was accepted in Texas Women’s University (TWU) in Denton, Texas. At that time TWU had all female students, but there were other activities around for her and her peers to engage in social activities. She lived in the least expensive dorm on campus and was a work study student in the school’s cafeteria and that’s how she put herself through college. Despite being Valedictorian and doing well in her nursing classes, Saddler faced other challenges, there was no professor in her clinical program that looked like her. “When I got to clinical, and there were no clinical instructors that looked like me, and I had at least one or two that constantly told me that I would never make it in nursing school. And so that was a challenge” she said.
After graduating with her BSN in 1971 from TWU, she worked as a full-time nurse at MD Anderson hospital in Houston for 33 years. During that time, she decided she wanted to pursue her masters’ degree, she credits her father for this pursuit. “My daddy, even though he didn’t have formal education, always pushed us and wanted us to do much more than what he did, he was my motivation” she said. Saddler graduated with her master’s degree in nursing in 1993 from the University of Texas Medical Center.
In 2003, Dr.Saddler left MD Anderson and got a faculty position at Houston Community College (HCC), she planned to only stay 5 years but ended up serving 15 years. Her childhood dream of become a nurse and a teacher both came true. “It’s interesting because nursing and teaching had always been something I wanted to do. So now I had the opportunity to do the teaching part” she said. After retiring from the state of Texas she had a total of 48 years of service to the Houston community. “That was kind of good for a girl who was told she’d never make a nurse” she said. During her time at HCC, she also went on to get a doctorate degree in nursing from the University of Texas Medical Branch. She graduated in 2011.
Dr. Saddler says her biggest accomplishment is her family. “I have four children and 12 grandchildren, and I think now it’s up to 21 with two on the way great grandchildren so that’s an accomplishment.” She gives God the glory for allowing her to get through her masters’ and doctoral program, because in both of those programs she was tasked with maintaining a certain GPA while having a full-time job. “I just feel like God really blessed me and allowed me to get through both those programs. that’s only by grace; that’s it only by grace.” Being a nurse had been her dream since should remember and she received all three of her degrees in nursing.
Dr. Saddler left AFRAM News with some words of wisdom saying, “If God put something in you that, he wants you to do and he will give you what you need to do it.
