Dr. Malene G. Irons Receives Alumni Award
This article gives a brief biographical sketch of Nolie Keith Wright. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: Greene, Mary H. "Dr. Malene G. Irons Receives Alumni Award," Alumni Bulletin of East Carolina College, Volume III, No. 3, May 1949.
Dr. Malene Grant Irons, Greenville pediatrician, received the award for outstanding achievement made annually by the Alumni Association of the college.The presentation was made by Dr. Howard J. McGinnis, director of the bureau of field services at the college, at Alumni Day exercises held in the Austin Auditorium of East Carolina Teachers College on May 14.
On this occasion, for the tenth consecutive year, the association honored a graduate of the college by giving public recognition of service and accomplishment of a high order. Dr. Irons is the seventh woman to receive the award.
As a specialist in children's diseases, Dr. Irons has been of outstanding service as a physician in this section.Recently the Kiwanis Club of Greenville observed a "Dr. Malene Irons Night" in recognition of her work among underpriviledged children.Calling her "The Good Samaritan" members of the civic organization made her an honorary member, presented her with a loving cup, and gave public expression of praise for her unselfish efforts to aid the unfortunate.Working in cooperation with Kiwanians, who provided medical supplies, Dr. Irons gives her services without charge to children in need of medical care.
Now recognized as one of Greenville's leading and most beloved physicians. Dr. Irons was graduated from East Carolina in 1935. She and her twin sister, Isa Costen Grant, also a graduate of 1935, planned early in life, she says, to become nurses.Advised by their father "to learn to give orders, not to take them," the two girls worked a year as school teachers and then began their medical training. Both are now physicians.Dr. Isa Costen Grant is at present doing work in tuberculosis at the Catawba Sanitorium at Roanoke, Va.
Dr. Malene Irons was born in Gates County, and for the first twelve years of her life lived with her gradnparents, Mr. and Mrs. S.I. Harrell, in Sunbury. She began her schooling there and later attended high school in Wilson, where her father, the Rev. T.M. Grant was a minister of the Methodist church.
Entering East Carolina as a candidate for the bachelor of arts degree, she majored in science and English and made an enviable record in scholastic work and in student activities.During the next year, while waiting to enter medical school, she taught science at Chicod in Pitt County.
After taking special work at Duke University, she entered the Medical College of Virginia in 1937, where she received in 1941 the degree of doctor of medicine.From 1941 through 1945, sher served there as an intern, assistant, instructor, and associate in pediatrics.
She was married in 1939 to Dr. C. Fred Irons, who is now a general practitioner in Greenville and physician at East Carolina Teachers College. They have two young sons, Thomas Frederick and Ben Gibson Irons. Dr. Irons performs with grace, charm, and efficiency her roles of mother and homemaker and competent physician.The Irons home on Evans Street, where the two doctors live and have their offices, is a busy place, with guests coming in the front door and patients crowding through the side entrance to waiting rooms and offices.
Dr. Malene Irons is a member of the Pitt COunty Medical Society, the North Carolina Medical Association, and the American Woman's Medical Association, and a member of the state committee on maternal and child welfare. She has published articles in the "Virginia Medical Monthly," and has appeared on programs of the Pitt County Medical Society.
Modest and unassuming in character, red-haired but gentle in act and expression, Dr. Irons embodies for many people, especially for many mothers, in this section the ideal of the expert and unselfish physician.The award of the East Carolina Alumni Association, commented an admirer recently, went this year to one who has a high place in public esteem and who lives up to the college ideal of service.
