The Way We Were: Connie Toney Andry
Connie Toney Andry was born on May 1, 1952, the fourth in line of six. “Two boys, two girls, two boys,” she said. Her paternal grandparents, Tom and Mary Toney, had owned several commercial and residential properties along San Marco Boulevard. Her family lived in one of the apartments above Gene’s Barbershop that is now Hollingsworth Showroom.
Within a short time, Connie’s family moved next door to the upper part of a duplex that faced Cedar Street, another home her grandmother owned and lived in the lower half of. That house has since been torn down along with the huge fig tree that was in the yard. When not picking its fruit, one of Connie’s favorite things to do as a little girl was to walk across the street to Clark’s Super Market. “If we were super good, my grandmother would buy us bottled Cokes and creamsicles,” she said.
When she was four years old, Connie and her family moved to a place of their own at 2527 Hendricks Avenue. “I made some of my lifetime friends there,” Connie said. There was Billy Meide, and his three siblings, who lived around the corner from her. They had a cousin, Kathy Bonano, who visited often. Interestingly, Billy now lives across the street from Connie. And Kathy, whose married name is Williams, now lives around the corner from her. The Toney and the Meide families liked that all their children played together because they had come from the same Arabic culture and shared the same values.
“We played outside all the time,” Connie said. They’d ride bikes along River Road. They’d walk to San Marco Shopping Center. With her eldest brother as chaperone, they’d attend the Saturday children’s matinee at San Marco Theatre; RC Cola bottle caps covered their admission. Mims Bakery was another huge treat, as was a trip to Peterson’s Five & Dime. “My personal favorite was White’s bookstore because I was a reader. I loved Nancy Drew!” Connie said. She and her friends invented The Spy Club. Every time a new book was released in the series, Connie would be the first in line at White’s to get it. “I have the fondest memories of that,” she said.
At Assumption Catholic School, Connie’s favorite grade was 1st with Sister Melissa Anne. “She loved me and nurtured me,” said Connie, who was a shy child and often quite ill. She spent a lot of time in and out of Baptist Hospital. Seeing that Connie needed extra encouragement, Sister Melissa would send Connie to one of her older brother’s classrooms to report on her 1st grade accomplishments, like a special art project, for example. Her brother’s teacher, another nun, happened to be a distant cousin of the Toney family.
After 8th grade graduation in 1966, Connie went on to Bishop Kenny High, where she met her best friend for life, Debbie Warren, who eventually married her high school sweetheart, Mike Reilly, who is now deceased. “Bishop Kenny was just great,” Connie said of her time there. She still faithfully attends reunions.
Following 1970 graduation, Connie attended a three-year-long program at St. Vincent’s Hospital School of Nursing. She worked on the hospital floors and was trained by doctors and chemists. “It was the best education,” Connie said. She lived in the dormitory on Barrs Street at the river. She is still friends today with her roommate, Pat Warwick from Daytona, who eventually married Chuck Parliament, another Bishop Kenny boy. “It shows how intertwined our lives are,” Connie said. She and Pat were in St. Vincent’s last nursing class. After their 1973 graduation, the program closed, as nursing education changed from hospital-based training to 4-year college degrees at universities. Upon graduation, Connie secured employment at St. Vincent’s as a pediatric nurse. She worked there until she married Paul Andry from Texas in January 1975.
Connie had met Paul in Miami two years prior at a Lebanese American Club convention. It was summer. They were on a double date. But not with each other. Paul’s date was his fiancé. Connie’s date was Paul’s best friend. On their drive back from south Florida to Texas after the convention, the boys stopped by St. Vincent’s to see Connie. “I just fell head over heels in love with Paul,” Connie said, even though it was his best friend whom she had gone on that double date with. When the boys drove away, heading back to Texas, Connie told her mom of Paul, “I’m going to marry him.” They had met only twice.
Following that second meeting in Jacksonville, Paul invited Connie to a party in Texas the following year, in May 1974, even though his best friend still liked Connie. In January 1975, Paul and Connie married at Immaculate Conception in Jacksonville. They went on to have three children.
While raising her children, Connie worked minimal hours outside the home as a PRN nurse, on an as needed basis only. “My primary role was wife and mother, which I just loved,” she said. She was active at the children’s schools—St. Joseph’s in Mandarin, Bishop Kenny, and University Christian—before they went off to college—University of North Florida and Florida State.
As a PRN, Connie began working for Baptist in 1988. She became the first nurse manager for the children’s emergency center at Wolfson. She moved up to director of all emergency services at Baptist and Wolfson downtown, serving the same hospital where she had spent so many stints as a child. Before leaving Baptist, Connie had dropped down to part time and became their first informatics nurse, taking her clinical knowledge and integrating it into the electronic world. After Baptist, Connie did consulting work for St. Vincent’s, helping them transition from paper to electronic documentation. She did the same for a group of Ascension hospitals in Michigan. In 2016, Connie retired after more than four decades in nursing, more than half of them at Baptist.
Over the course of her long career, Connie even moved to Texas for a few years and took part in opening one of the first pediatric emergency departments at a hospital in San Antonio. Paul, of course, was by her side, back in his hometown. “Honestly, I love nursing,” she said. So much so that when COVID hit, Connie felt a need to contribute and worked remotely from home for a year-and-a-half doing administrative tasks through a Baptist program.
Despite two knee replacements, Connie still plays tennis three times per week. She started playing at 45 at San Jose Country Club. Now she plays at the Williams Family YMCA. When not on court, she and Paul volunteer at San Jose Catholic Church and at Sulzbacher.
Now grandparents of seven, Connie and Paul live in Old San Jose on the River in a single-family house built on the same land where, as a young couple with their first two children, they had lived in the River Reach Apartments before the complex was torn down. “We almost live in the exact spot,” Connie said. Their three grown children and six grandchildren live nearby.
The closeness of the Andry family doesn’t stop them from teasing Connie about her upbeat attitude that just won’t let up. Everything, to her, is more than half full, never near empty.
“My tagline is CTBH – choose to be happy!” she said.
By Mary Wanser
Resident Community News
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