HATTIESBURG, Miss. – (March 4, 2025) Working in Forrest General Hospital’s Labor & Delivery Department as a young 21-year-old nursing student in 1986, Tangela Lee kept a bag of peanut M&Ms in her pocket. They provided her comfort when she was nervous and helped give her blood sugar a little boost when needed.
On September 20, 1987, Crystal Neal, an expectant mother from Collins, who was due to give birth, was admitted. “Tangela popped into my room to tell me she was going to be my student nurse,” Crystal said as she recently remembered back to that long, long night of labor. “I was hungry and they wouldn’t let me have anything to eat or drink. But Tangela confided she had M&Ms in her pocket and would share some after I delivered.”
Tangela, who still carried around a bag of peanut M&Ms in her pocket, would check in from time to time on a hungry Crystal, who was craving pizza.
After her son, Catlin, was delivered, Crystal was finally allowed something to eat. Her husband, Jon, went downstairs and bought two packs of peanut M&Ms, one for Crystal, and the other for Tangela.
Before Crystal was released to carry her firstborn home, she and her M&M nurse snapped a photo together, but back then there were no cells phones to make things easier.
The Neal’s second child was born elsewhere two years later – a lesson learned. Neal wouldn’t return to Forrest General until April 1990 for the birth of her third child. She arrived in the ER in full labor to find Dr. H. Lamar Gillespie, Sr., on call. As they were wheeling Crystal down the hall, her husband, Jon, thought he recognized their former nurse, Tangela, and went to say, “Hi!”
Tangela, who by now was a full-fledged Labor & Delivery nurse, asked the nurse tending to Crystal if they could swap patients, so she could be back with the Neal family for the birth of their third child, a son they named Colby. Again, the family said goodbye to Tangela and headed home. No picture or M&Ms this time.
Crystal and Tangela, who had graduated from those younger nursing years, and has served as director for Women & Children’s Services for 18 years, reminisced about that time 38 years ago during Crystal’s recent overnight stay at Forrest General for some gynecological surgery.
Crystal said she came to Forrest General, not thinking about the possibility that Tangela might still work at the hospital. As the nurses in PACU were getting Crystal, a real talker, settled in her room, something came up about food, and Crystal recounted the story from 1986 of her first visit to Forrest General’s Labor and Delivery Department when she was in labor and so very hungry, and about her nurse, Tangela Lee, and how they shared a love for peanut M&Ms.
The nurses didn’t know anybody by that name, but they did know a Tangela Jackson, who now served as director of the hospital’s Women & Children’s Services. After a quick perusal of Facebook, they discovered they were one in the same. Lee was Tangela’s maiden name.
The nurses texted Tangela, who was on her way in to work, and told her there was a lady who had been admitted to fourth floor and had told them a story about a nurse named Tangela Lee and M&Ms. “I knew exactly who she was,” said Tangela, who couldn’t remember the name, but did remember the patient.
“Never in the back of my mind had I thought that Tangela would still be working at Forrest General,” Crystal said. “When I told that story, I didn’t know if she would still be here. That was a long time ago.”
Tangela was excited to reconnect and catch up with Crystal and her husband. Visiting them several times during Crystal’s overnight stay, she made sure they were being well taken care of. Crystal said the care she received reminded her of the nurses back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, when nurses wore the starched uniforms, caps, stockings, and white shoes, and came in asking if they could “fluff my pillow,” or “get anything for me.”
“The care was just phenomenal. They tended to my every need, and just went out of their way to help me,” Crystal said. “I’ve had a wonderful experience and stay. If I have to be in the hospital again, I’ll never go anywhere else but Forrest General.”
And they also continued to laugh about the M&M story as it was told over and over again. “Tangela visited me more than my own family did,” Crystal laughed. It was like no time had passed since they last saw each other. This time it had been 34 years since Colby was born, and they talked about grandchildren – nine for Crystal and Jon, all born at Forrest General, and one for Tangela.
Before Crystal was discharged, Jon went down to the cafeteria and came back with a gift for his wife and a parting gift for her favorite nurse – a king size bag of peanut M&Ms for each of them.
For more information about Forrest Health’s Women & Children’s Services, visit www.forresthealth.org/services/womens-childrens/
