Ivalou Dike

Ivalou Dike spent 15 years working at the University of Vermont Medical Center in the Dietary and Dialysis Departments. After retiring, Dike put in another 15 years at the hospital as a volunteer. Her daughter Donna Demers says her mom loved working at the hospital. Demers says her mom wanted to help the hospital even after she was gone, so she donated her body to the medical school.

"Helping the patients and, you know, if they needed something, she'd go and get it. And she was quite the talker too. My mother loved to talk, so she fit right in with keeping the patients entertained, I should say, because my mother could be really funny ...The reason why she donated her body, she said she wanted them to study her brain, which I think was a good thing for them to study on her, because she had a lot of years of depression. And she only had one request. She said, 'I want them to cover me up at night because I get cold.' "

Ivalou Dike died on April 21, 2020 at Birchwood Terrace, a nursing home in Burlington. She was 89.

Donna Demers remembering mother Ivalou Dike

Burlington, Vermont