Meet Lorie R. Friend

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1968, Ms. Lorie Friend lived the first twelve years of her life in Dundalk with her loving parents and three siblings, one sister and two brothers. She was also fortunate to be close to her extended family there. Ms. Friend was raised well such that her upbringing instilled in her a strong work ethic, family loyalty, and traditional values of community service.   

Ms. Friend feels fortunate to have been blessed with a well rooted family history. Her maternal grandparents were immigrants from Italy, her Grandfather from the North and her Grandmother from the South. Her paternal grandparents were small business owners, they operated a local carwash and mobile café.    

 Ms. Friends Mother was a very traditional Mom, who also worked as a teacher’s aid for the local head start program. They were very close and Ms. Friend often speaks of her, their good times together, and the resourcefulness and resiliency she learned from her Mother. Ms. Friend’s Father owned and operated a beauty salon, was a leader in their church, and was well respected and active as a volunteer in the community. She attributes the strength of her faith to her father’s example.  

Ms. Friend enjoyed her early childhood in the Baltimore area, particularly her time at church and being a gymnast.

After a fateful family vacation to Western Maryland, Ms. Friend’s parents were so taken in by the natural beauty of the mountains and wanting their children to experience a smaller town, more rural lifestyle, they relocated the family to Oakland, Maryland. As an early teenager, Ms. Friend came to love nature, hiking in the woods frequently with the family dog, and taking up horseback riding, eventually becoming a guide. 

Ms. Friend graduated from Southern Garrett High School, and decided, as an ambitious young woman, to move back to Baltimore to seek a career in business. She worked as an office assistant for a time; however, she ultimately felt the calling to go into nursing. In pursuit of her goal, Ms. Friend returned to Western Maryland where she attended Garrett Community College and Graduated from Allegany College with a nursing degree. She promptly passed her nursing boards.   

As a newly licensed nurse, Ms. Friend landed a position at Garrett Regional Hospital where she has been a fulltime registered nurse for over twenty five years. She continues to practice there as a senior pre-opt/post-opt nurse and is well respected and highly valued in the medical community. After more than two decades of diligently treating patients and interacting with their family members, Ms. Friend is well known, liked, and appreciated in the community at large. Without fail, to go out and about locally with Ms. Friend, one can expect to be approached by her former patients, or their family members, who remember her and thank her for helping them through a difficult time.  

Throughout the Covid 19 pandemic and its variants, Ms. Friend dutifully held post, day after day, weeks to months, now years, at hospital and cared for her patients, putting herself at no small personal risk. To hear her speak of this with family and loved ones, she would say, “I’m a nurse, this is one of the risks I signed on for, I am not going to abandon my community when I am needed most.  If this were to end badly for me, don’t be sad, just remember me well.”     

The Mother of three children, two daughters and one son, all of whom are adults now, Ms. Friend values her relationships with her family most of all and remains dedicated to always helping her family. She loves hosting family gatherings, one of her most prized possessions are the Italian recipes passed down to her, and she loves to travel to visit her family.