A Sherman woman who served the residents of Grayson County for more than 50 years in one way or another will turn 100 this weekend.

Dr. Mary Jo O’Dell Tonelli first came to Sherman back in 1964 to open the first department of health in the region. She would eventually retire as the county’s medical director in 1995.

Along the way she helped to start what would become MHMR, now Texoma Community Center, and provided healthcare education to thousands of residents.

“It’s hard for me to put my mind around the figure (100 years). I don’t feel like I’m turning 100. I feel more like 60,” Tonelli said this week.

Tonelli’s family is planning a celebration of her birthday from 3-5 p.m. Jan. 18 in the dining room at Travis Lodge, 2817 N Travis St, Sherman. They will have cake and refreshment.

Speaking on the telephone, Tonelli said the secret to her longevity — if there is one — is that she followed her own advice.

“Being a medical person, I always ate right, good foods,” she said. “That was my primary message to my community was to eat right to stay healthy, so I used that to reach the community.”

While eating well can help the body stay healthy, staying involved in the community around her has helped Tonelli keep her mind sharp.

“I really feel like I am missing out on a lot if I don’t stay involved somehow,” she said.

One way that she stayed involved with her community was to volunteer at WNJ Hospital, now called Sherman Medical Center. She worked there helping folks and popping popcorn until her 98th year.

She said there was a reason she picked the hospital as the place she would volunteer.

“It’s where I would run into a lot of people that I knew and it was certainly an opportunity to volunteer,” she said.

But the hospital wasn’t the only place she was involved in the community. She also worked with the League of Women Voters, Earth Day festivities, and Meals on Wheels of Texoma.

Tonelli made a career out of going where she was needed and doing what needed to be done, but her son Brad said she was a trail blazer way before she ever came to Grayson County.

“Back when she was starting her medical education, I consider her a trailblazer because back in the day women were expected to stay at home and raise kids and not be professionals,” son Brad Tonelli said. “So, she went beyond that got an education and became a professional.”

Mary Tonelli received her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin and then was part of a class of 70 medical students at the Baylor University College of Medicine. There were only five women in that class and Mary Tonelli’s voice swelled with pride when she said they all made it through the program.

She worked at a county health department in California before coming to Texas because her parents lived here, and she wanted her children to know their grandparents.

Though her working days are long behind her. Mary Tonelli still likes to keep busy. She spends her time walking in her yard and admiring the garden. She also loves to shop and to ready library books.

“Oh, I am so proud of our library, and I do spend a lot of time at the library picking my books out, bringing them back,” she said. “I am real proud of our library here in Sherman.”

She said she has always loved reading and enjoys books that work accurate history into their story.

“She really likes the David Baldacci’s books,” her son said.

And she loves just staying up to date on the local news and happenings in the county she served for so long.

“”I’ve enjoyed every minute, I think, that I have lived here,” Mary Tonelli said.

When asked about the perfect gift for her 100th birthday, Mary Tonelli said she didn’t know really.

Her son however said one of her favorite treats is a Hershy’s milk chocolate bar with almonds.

“She doesn’t really need anything so something like that that she could really enjoy eating would be a really good gift,” Brad Tonelli said.

Mary Tonelli had three sons and three grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Her contributions to Grayson County Public Health.

A 2017 article in North Texas Best Times said Mary Jo Tonelli is credited for instituting or improving a number of public health programs in the county.

When she first started work at the county, she had a staff that included a sanitarian, a nurse, a clerk and very limited working space in both the Grayson County courthouse and the sub courthouse in Denison. Back then the county didn’t have maternity care, well-baby or family planning services, nor did it have the money to provide those services.

But Mary Tonelli wrote and was approved for a grant to that helped to pay for prenatal and postnatal care as well as hospital deliveries for babies and eventually, well baby clinics.

With that success under her belt, she then applied for federal funds to build a family planning program that provided birth control bills and other forms of birth control at no cost to low-income individuals.

As the services grew, county leaders realized that the Health Department was outgrowing its space both in Sherman and in Denison.

Mary Tonelli would then oversee the building of new building on Walnut Street in Sherman that would house indigent health program for the city as well as home health services and the senior nutritional program. Later on, the obstetrics program as well as the well as family planning and the Women Infants and Children patients along with the immunization programs.

In the 1980s, federal money was obtained to build a new building for the Health Department in Denison. It was all a lot of work but eventually the Health Department that Mary Tonelli built would become the model for counties of a similar size as Grayson.

Going beyond the Health Department

A 2015 article by North Texas E News reported just how Mary Tonelli was important in the formation of mental health services in Grayson County after her retirement.

Mary Tonelli was one of a number of local residents who played a key role in organizing the efforts of officials and community leaders in the establishment of MHMRST, now called Texoma Community Center.

“These individuals recognized in 1971 the existence of a First Baptist Church program in Sherman for children with intellectual and developmental delays and a Denton State School satellite program for persons with those same delays residing in Cooke County,” the article said.

Then in 1974 that group orchestrated a request to establish a comprehensive community mental health and mental retardation center in Cooke, Fannin, and Grayson counties.

“With the help of the local governments of Cooke County, Fannin County, Grayson County, the City of Bonham, the City of Denison, the City of Gainesville, and the City of Sherman, a local board of trustees was organized. The board of trustees petitioned the Texas Department of Mental Health Mental Retardation (TXMHMR) for authority to receive funding and serve persons throughout the three-county area. The petition was successful and established Mental Health Mental Retardation Services of Texoma as a community center under local not-for-profit control,” the article stated.