In 1918, Stokes' mother Kristine Berg Mueller was a 14-year-old hospital volunteer in Norway during the Spanish Flu pandemic, putting her in regular contact with the deadly disease.
Mueller was a 14-year-old student in her native Norway when the flu pandemic hit.
It eventually killed an estimated 50 million people, including some 675,000 in the United States, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.
AdDecades after the flu pandemic passed, Stokes' mother would tell her that was what had inspired her to become a nurse.
She moved to the United States in 1923 and enrolled in a U.S. nursing program four years later.