I'm not quite sure what day Bertha was born. When I first met her we celebrated her birthday on May 28, then somehow it got to May 18, then when she was planning to retire she had to go get school records to prove her date of birth. First she told me May 25 and eventually it was May 24... So I just say she was born between May 18 and May 28, 1927...Bertha worked at UTMB for 46 years, most of it in the Cytogenetics Laboratory directed by Dr. Lillian Lockhart. She was classified as a Lab Tech but did the work of the cytogentic tech, the cytogenetics technician and cytogenetics technologists. She did everything from washing dishes to cutting out chromosomes and putting them on a karyotype board and counting the chromosomes for the lab director for use in the diagnosis. She never said 'no' to any job she was asked to do. She did everything with a smile on her face and love in her heart. Now don't get me wrong. There were a couple techs that come thru the lab that sorta weren't in Bertha's favorites book. She could make anybody laugh and had the best laugh I've ever heard. I loved her like a second mother. We laughed together. We cried together when my daughter passed. We walked out to lunch somedays at work and went for happy hour a few times with some of our other work friends, as well as the boss.. She retired after 46 years at the age of 59 to stay at home and take care of her first granddaughter, Gernisha, when Gernisha was 5 years old and she spent the rest of her life taking care of her children, grandchildren, greatgrandchldren and step-grandchildren, anyone who needed help. She was the best cook I've ever known. Her food tasted as good or better than anyone who had gone to cooking school, even better than Emeril.. She was a very giving, unselfish, compassionate, wonderful, hard-working christian woman whom i will miss every day of my life....