Two MCCN students received scholarships in memory of Fran Tucker at the 2024 Scholarship and Donor Recognition Dinner. Mariah Joyce received the Fran Tucker Memorial Family Scholarship and Emily Thompson received the Class of 1972 Fran Repasky Tucker Scholarship.
“It was an honor to meet the students who will benefit from these scholarships created to honor Fran’s life, work and memory,” said Kevin Tucker, her husband of nearly 50 years. “Fran had financial help – scholarships and grants – to help pay for nursing school and felt she may not have gotten through without that assistance. Being able to help the next generation of Mount Carmel nurses is something Fran would have loved.”
In addition to the family’s scholarship, Fran’s Mount Carmel classmates created a scholarship to honor their beloved friend. According to Kevin, Fran cherished her lifelong friendships with her Mount Carmel classmates. “She often recalled memories of her time at the School of Nursing and the good, good people that she met there. From pizza and mass nights on Wednesday, to roommate shenanigans, and great guidance and instruction from the nuns and other faculty, her time at Mount Carmel was foundational to her approach to nursing and to life. She was proud of it and wore it as a badge of honor, especially professionally.
Fran and Kevin met just after she graduated and began practicing. He was a pre-med student at the time, working as an orderly at Clinton Memorial Hospital in Wilmington, Ohio. She was a nurse on the pediatric/minor surgery floor. “I worked on her floor, so had an opportunity to get to know her,” said Kevin. “I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.”
Kevin’s multiple attempts to impress Fran by helping her with procedures and his stellar prep of a surgery patient, whom he admittedly shaved multiple times to achieve perfection, earned him a coveted date with Fran. They married in April 1974.
Fran worked for 20 years in pediatric nursing and then for the Ohio Department of Health as a Nurse Surveyor, inspecting nursing home and group residential facilities. She retired in 2011 after nearly 40 years in nursing.
Throughout her career, Fran Tucker relied on the foundational education she received at the Mount Carmel School of Nursing. “She valued her Mount Carmel education and its focus on excellence to deliver care to patients and educate other nurses,” said Kevin.
Fran, 73, passed away on January 20, 2024, after a brief illness. In addition to her husband, Fran is survived by her sons, Cassidy, who attended the Scholarship Dinner with his father, Carson, Casey and daughter, Courtney, their spouses, three grandsons, two brothers and a sister, as well as in-laws, cousins, nieces and nephews.