Thelma Augostat played violin in a trio as a young woman.[4][7] She became medical records librarian at a hospital in
Macon, Georgia in 1959.[8] There, Van Norte established a training program for blind medical transcriptionists.[9] She was also a consultant to
USAID, and spent time in
British Guiana, teaching and establishing a medical records library at a hospital for
leprosy patients.[10] In the 1970s, she worked on contacting families of deceased
Central State Hospital patients. "We just hunt, hunt, hunt until we get a clue," she explained in a 1973 newspaper article.[11]
Harold Russell and Thelma Van Norte, from a 1966 publication of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped
Van Norte received the 1966 Georgia State Public Personnel Award,[12][13] and the National Public Personnel Award from the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped.[14] The national award was presented to her by actor
Harold Russell at a banquet in Milwaukee.[1][5]
Personal life
Thelma Augostat married physician William M. Schindledecker in 1932;[15] they had two sons, Samuel and Robert, and divorced in 1946. She married again, to Lloyd F. Van Norte, before 1950. He was postmaster of
Edisto Island, South Carolina.[4] She died in 1985, at the age of 73, at a hospital in
Sandersville, Georgia.[6][16]