In The News

Have You Met Loretto's Wonder Woman?

"When I wake up every morning, I do my meditation, I put my feet on the floor, and say this is going hto be a good day; you claim it and you own it. I don’t care what anybody throws at you, it’s going to be a good day. No matter what happens, you tell them to have a blessed day. You keep going. That’s how I keep my smile every day. Trust me, it wasn’t easy, it takes practice. It’s easy for me to say it because I came through the storm. I survived.

Seeing domestic violence cases breaks me. I am a survivor of domestic violence, I was in a 19-year relationship, I was shot but I survived. When I see young ladies come in that are in domestic violence situations, they are closed up, they are in a shell, they don’t know who to trust. A lot of times when the police bring them in, they won’t speak. The crisis workers try to talk to them, they won’t speak. When they come in and no one can get them to talk, I ask if I can give it a shot. Once I get down to talking to them, I gain their trust, they tell me their name. I tell them do you feel safe to talk to me, they say no because they don’t trust anybody. Once I tell them my story, they tell me I don’t look like someone who has been through that. I tell them you can be me and then you can go and help somebody and they’re going to tell you the same thing. You have to build that strength. I am strong.

I’m from the Austin area; I was a little rugrat running around up in this area. I played in Columbus Park. Me giving back to this community is something that is amazing. After high school, I went to Mississippi and ended up going to college. I got a degree in criminal justice and worked at a security firm where I started as a regular unarmed security officer. Within four years, I worked myself up as a manager, and eventually was running the company. I’ve been in this line of work over 20 years now. I stayed there ten years as a lieutenant/area supervisor where I worked with a lot of police officers. They told me: ‘you know you do such a good job; you keep a lot of clients for the company, we advise you to apply for law enforcement.’ I kind of rejected it because I was in my thirties and thought they would not want anyone as old as me. They brought me an application and within two months I was called and started the police academy and eventually graduated. Then, I ended up working in a college town, which is way harder than working on the street because you’re dealing with some party kids, but eventually I developed a relationship with the kids. To me, it was all about helping, it was not about arresting them or putting anybody in jail. I ended up going back to the academy and then I ended up working for another police department part time, working the city, so I had the best of both worlds: college town, regular city. I worked two jobs for almost two years to support my mom and my dad who were in Chicago and were sick. Eventually I had to travel back and forth to take care of my parents and made the decision to move back home. I’ve been in this line of work over 20 years now. Working at Loretto Hospital has made me more patient, compassionate, understanding, and better at listening. I am powerful.

Wonder Woman is such a powerful nickname for me. I think it comes because I’m not afraid of anything. People are like who is this lady, she doesn’t stop, she’s like a super woman and I’m like no, I’m Wonder Woman. I’ve always been a Wonder Woman fan since when I was a kid. That name came to me before I started wearing the Wonder Woman stuff. In my line of work, sometimes you have to detain and restrain, sometimes you have to take a beating. I still stand.

I am Yvette Jones, Loretto’s Wonder Woman."