The estate of Lorene Montgomery Miley donated $434,000 to the Springfield Memorial Foundation in December 2025, a gift that will help fund the purchase of state-of-the-art medical equipment for Springfield Memorial Hospital (SMH) over the next several years.
“Lorene was a 1935 graduate of the Memorial School of Nursing here in Springfield, which ran from 1899 to 1975,” said SMH president and CEO Jay Roszhart. “That is where her career and lifelong interest in helping others was realized and nurtured. We are grateful for her support, especially all these years later. What an incredible legacy she leaves.”
Miley was born in 1914 and grew up in Grove City, just outside of Taylorville. Upon graduation from the Memorial School of Nursing in 1935, she fulfilled a lifelong dream of moving to New York City where she worked as an emergency nurse in the naval shipyards, a supervisor of health in the field of industrial nursing and as a supervisor of nursing in a general hospital.
On a trip back home, she met Clark Miley, an attorney in Taylorville. The two fell in love and were married in 1951. She became a school nurse for Mt. Auburn. She and her husband privately provided coats and financial assistance for area students in need. Miley died August 24, 2004.
Foundation director Pam Hulten first learned about Lorene Miley when she received an email about the estate’s donation, that went into effect after Miley’s last surviving sibling died in 2025.
A nonprofit fundraiser for more than 25 years, Hulten has seen many extraordinary gifts, but even she acknowledges this was unique.
“The fact that Lorene left this sizable gift in a very quiet gesture of kindness and gratitude, without once connecting with the hospital, is priceless,” Hulten said. “I think about how her entire career was devoted to nursing excellence – first in New York City and then Taylorville. She touched hundreds of lives as a result of the Memorial School of Nursing, and that is truly inspiring.”
A separate donation from Miley’s estate, totaling $434,000, was also given to the Taylorville Memorial Foundation. Miley and her family members, including her mother, went to St. Vincent Memorial Hospital, now Taylorville Memorial Hospital, for all their healthcare needs.