Oral History Program Lois Berlin Shepherd Interviewed by Marci Farr 12 August 2008 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Lois Berlin Shepherd Interviewed by Marci Farr 12 August 2008 Copyright © 2009 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Dee School of Nursing was founded in 1910 to provide training for nurses who would staff the new Dee Memorial Hospital. The first class of eight nurses graduated from the school in 1913 and the school continued to operate until 1955, with a total of more than 700 graduates. A new nursing school and home located just east of the hospital was completed in 1917 and all nursing students were required to live in the home during their training. This oral history project was created to capture the memories of the school's alumni before their stories disappear in the same way the Dee Hospital has disappeared. The oral interviews focus on how the women became involved with the school, their experiences going through training, and how they used the training. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management Special Collections All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Lois Berlin Shepard, an oral history by Marci Farr, 12 August 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Lois Berlin Shepherd Application Photo July 1943 Graduation Photo Class of 1947 Lois Berlin Shepherd September 10, 2008 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Lois Berlin Shepherd. It was conducted August 12, 2008 and concerns her recollections and experiences with the Dee School of Nursing. The interviewer is Marci Farr. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing Lois Berlin Shepherd, a graduate in 1947. It is August 12, 2008. We are interviewing her in her home in Ogden, Utah. Just tell us a little bit about your early life Lois, where you grew up, where you went to school, and your family. LS: I grew up in Huntsville, Utah. I went to Huntsville Junior High and Weber High School. My parents had twelve children. I was number eleven. Twelve children, that is a lot. My mom died when I was two and a half years old. My sisters were wonderful. They helped raise me. MF: That is great. When you were older why did you decide to become a nurse? LS: After my mom died I stayed with an aunt and uncle for awhile. My Uncle always talked about “what did I want to be when I grew up?” I said, “I want to be a nurse. I just want to be a nurse.” Then he said, “Well if you can’t be a nurse you can be an airline stewardess.” I guess I stuck with my decision to be a nurse. I was really lucky. At the time I graduated from Weber High School in 1944. The cadet nurse program came out. I think that I was very lucky. There were thirtyeight young women that joined that year and came in to the cadet nurse program at the Dee Hospital. There were dorms here on 24th street (The Dee Hospital Nurses Home) that we stayed at for 3 years. I felt really lucky to get in to the program and really enjoyed it. I met a lot of wonderful nurses and roommates and we had great teachers. 1 MF: That also makes it worth it because then you know you are more apt to learn and you feel like you can improve yourself. Why did you choose the Dee Hospital? LS: I think because it was right here in Weber County, close to home. MF: You were close to home. That probably was good. LS: It was. MF: What was your first impressions when you first entered nurses training? What were your impressions about the school? LS: Being there when I was very young, the school, I thought was great. The dormitories were nice and clean at first, I was alone in a little room in the basement and it was not too great. Then a little later on, I moved into another room with a roommate. It was more fun. It was more fun to be in a double room and get to meet people and know people. We had a wonderful class that we shared a lot of good times with. MF: So who was your roommate? LS: Well, my first roommate was Afton Ure Roy. Then I had a roommate named Donna Sorenson from Logan, Utah and we were roommates for the rest of the time. We became good friends. MF: Did you have some of your classes at Weber College? LS: We did. MF: Was that your first year, that you had your classes down there? And you had some at the hospital, right? LS: Right. We walked every school day from up on Harrison Boulevard down to Jefferson avenue. 2 MF: That was probably a little bit of a jaunt? LS: Yes, it was. I guess it was good for us. MF: So who were some of your instructors that you remember? You had some great teachers. LS: I was trying to think this morning. I remember Miss Valcarce, I wrote a couple down because I thought I might forget. Miss Valcarce, Mrs. Miner, Miss Manning, Hazel Flamm, the room mothers, you maybe are going to ask me about the room mothers. MF: Yes. LS: Mrs. Woodward and Mrs. Wood. There was one other one…Mrs. McGaw. And maybe you have already got those in your history. MF: How were the house mothers? LS: They were great. They were strict but very nice. We had to be in by ten o’clock every night. MF: You had your curfew. LS: Yes we had to be in by our curfew at 10 p.m. MF: Did you have any doctors teach your classes or was it mostly nurses? LS: I think there were mostly nurses. Once in awhile we would have a lecture by the doctors. I remember Dr. Sheldon P. Hayes and Dr. Orson Whitney Young who taught Life Science at Weber College. MF: Who were some of your classmates that you went through school with? LS: When I went to nurses school? MF: When you went to nurses school. 3 LS: Alice Berg, Corrine Cowley, Beverly Chamberlain, Yo Oka and many others. MF: We haven’t interviewed her yet. LS: Yo Oka is her name now, it was Yoshiko Iwamoto then. MF: Yes. LS: I have got a whole scrapbook of pictures of them. Do you want to see any pictures? MF: Yes that will be great. LS: A scrapbook of pictures. MF: So you guys had your class of thirty-eight is what you started with. LS: We started with that many; it says that in the newspaper. MF: That is crazy. LS: That was the very first number that applied with this cadet nursing program. MF: With your nurses program. That is good. So you know, probably, Helen Farr and Faye Longhurst. LS: Yes. MF: They were both in the program, right? LS: They were just ahead of us. MF: They were a year before you. Okay so they were ’46. I was trying to remember if they were the same year as you. LS: They were ahead of us. MF: Tell us about a typical day at the hospital. After your probationary time, is that when you started your shift work, was after that time, or did you start doing it before? 4 LS: If I remember correctly, we did not start working until after the Probationary Period. Then we would work certain shifts and then go to school. I remember it was really interesting because we got to try every floor. MF: Yes, do everything. LS: Do everything. We even learned to do the IVs, give medications, and those kind of things. Most of the time, I remember doing the bed baths and the regular care, taking care of the patients. MF: You learned everything. You learned every single floor while you were in the program. LS: We did. MF: What was your favorite floor? LS: I always said that I either wanted to work with the children or the older people. I did end up working in the nursery the last ten or twenty years, maybe. MF: Tell us about P.M. care. What was that? LS: That is when we would get them ready for dinner, the evening dinner. Just go in and wash their hands, make sure they would get up and go to the restroom and get cleaned up and ready for their dinner, evening meal. Nursing has changed. We did all our charting by hand. Now I am sure they use computers and it is very different isn’t it? MF: You constantly had paperwork to do. What would you do if you had a night off or time off? LS: In those days… We had a singing group, when I think about it, while we were there, there was a double trio of nurses. Some of those that I mentioned earlier 5 and some others, a double trio and we would sing. Sopranos: Donna Sorenson (later Robertson) and Margaret Critchlow (later Weight); Seconds: Alice Berg (later Stephens) and Lois Berlin (later Shepherd); Altos: Dorothy Mills (later Bird) and Joyce Mordaunt (later Way). Our Accompanist was Betty Van Dyke. It was a lot of fun. We even made a record but mine got broken. So we would often sing for different programs and for church meetings. So we had fun that way. While I was there we would attend Sunday meetings too. Joyce Mordaunt, have you met Joyce Mordaunt Way? MF: Not yet. LS: Doctor Way’s wife. I remember she was Joyce Mordaunt. She lived up on Harrison Boulevard so we would attend her ward for Sunday school and that is how I met my husband. He was teaching a class there. MF: That is great. Were you required to attend church or was it a choice? LS: No, it was a choice. MF: Were there any traditions associated with the hospital that you remember? LS: Just to be in at ten o’clock every night. MF: Did they do anything during the holidays at all? Do you remember anything special that they would do? LS: We just probably would work. MF: Tell us about your capping and pinning ceremony. Do you remember where that took place? LS: Well I have a picture of it over there. It was right there at the nurses home (the capping), after we had been in for six months. They held it at the nurses home 6 and that is where we would have programs. We probably sang, and others would sing and use their talents. MF: Tell us about graduation. Do you remember where that took place? You said it was June of ’47? LS: June of ’47. We had a wonderful party and even a dance after after the graduation. It was a big celebration after three years of nursing. MF: While you were in training did you get paid at all? Were you compensated for your time? LS: If we were, it would be a small amount. But we were lucky that the Cadet Nurse Program paid for our training. MF: After graduation did you stay at the Dee Hospital? LS: I did. MF: What did you do after you graduated? LS: I stayed there and worked for…well let us see…I worked there until September 1948 and then continued working…(I got married in December 1947) but I did stay, and worked another year after that. MF: What did you do after that? You got married… LS: Then I would go back just part-time and work maybe one day a week. When my children got older, I would work 2-3 days a week. Then before I retired, I went back and worked full-time for awhile. MF: You stayed with the Dee Hospital? LS: I did, at the McKay Dee Hospital. MF: Then did you just transfer over to the McKay? 7 LS: Yes. MF: What year did you retire? LS: It was in 1983, (the end of ’83) because then my husband had retired and we went on a mission to Scotland after he retired. I kind of retired a little bit early, when I was fifty-eight so that we could go on a mission. MF: Did you know any of the members of the Dee family? LS: Elizabeth Dee Stewart. When I worked in the preemie nursery at the new McKay Hospital she would actually come over and sit and hold the little preemies and help us feed them. She would just love to come and sit and hold them and rock them and feed the preemies, not routinely but once in awhile when she had a chance and that was so special. MF: She is a great lady because she helped so much. That was her thing was it seemed like every person in the Dee family had a specialty. Maude’s was the clinic that was at the hospital. Elizabeth’s was always nursing because she wanted to be a nurse. I think that is why her association with the nurses was so strong is because she always wanted to but she didn’t have that chance but it still helped you out. We have been reading the histories, everybodys little histories that they wrote in the 1995 one. LS: Really? If I could get my book over here and show you something, can I do that? Because I remember when I retired, we got a twenty year pin at one point and I have a picture of that. I hate to interrupt your interview. MF: You are absolutely fine. 8 LS: Okay these are all the pictures of our nursing group and all those. I imagine you have all those. MF: Oh those are great. LS: These are our class. MF: We just interviewed Eloise. LS: Oh did you? Eloise Martineau? MF: Yes. We just interviewed her the other day. And we did Ruth. Oh those are so pretty. LS: This is Yo Iwamoto. MF: Okay, yes, we haven’t talked to her yet. Dorothy, we have talked to Dorothy. LS: Good. This is our group; most of these are still with us. This is one of the reunions a little later. MF: Oh that was your picture. LS: This is the one I was thinking of that I received a twenty year pin from Eva Jean Law at the McKay Dee Hospital and she was the Director of Nurses. That was December fifth in 1980. And that was after twenty years. MF: This was when you had your class reunion? LS: Yes. MF: That is a great picture. LS: If you want to copy it, you may. MF: Yes, that would be great to have. LS: My photo machine isn’t working right now, I tried it last night and it didn’t work but I could make a copy later and give it to you. 9 MF: That is fine. Are you coming to the luncheon? Are you planning on that? LS: Yes. MF: If you want, just do that and then we can get it from you then if you want to do that. That would be perfect. Then we will have that. LS: This is my roommate Donna Sorensen back here but she has passed away since then. Quite a few of them have passed away since then. MF: There is not so many left huh? LS: This is Joyce Mordaunt Way. MF: Dorothy. LS: And Dorothy. I can’t believe that these three are all gone. She is gone too. MF: That is why we are doing this project is because every day my friend would cut out clippings and say, “Okay, here is another one we did not get.” LS: I will go and set that aside if you would like a copy of that I could get you one. MF: Yes, that would be so great. LS: Here is our little cadet nurse. Pat…some of them have saved their capes, we had capes and hats and things but I didn’t save mine. I should have. I just saved that little (an insignia) and this is my roommate Donna Sorenson. MF: What is this person’s name? Faye Ball. LS: Faye. MF: She saved both of her uniforms. She has her purse and everything and all of her little epitats? So when we have our big reception up at Weber State we are going to have her uniform on display. 10 LS: Wonderful. There is commencement. The 35th annual commencement on Friday May 23,… MF: Of 1947. So it was at Weber College. LS: The Thomas D. Dee Memorial Hospital School of Nursing, an annual junior promenade Friday May 2nd nineteen-hundred and forty-seven. That is at Weber Ballroom. They had that after the graduation. MF: That would be a reason to celebrate. LS: These pictures, I just saved a lot of things, even the picture of the hospital but I am sure you have pictures of those. MF: I think we have that, yes. That is great though. LS: These are some of the reunions that…we have had small reunions. This was the hospital, the McKay, you probably have that too, in ’74. Here it is. MF: That is great. LS: Miss Mortensen, she was one of our supervisors, I remember her. She was a sweetheart. MF: That is great. LS: Lots of pictures in there. Just licenses and I did save some of the obituaries and things of people that have died since then. Some of the doctors, they are just so nice and they worked with us so well. I think everyone respected doctors. We would always stand up as they would come in the room and let them sit down. I don’t know if they get that respect now. MF: I know, you wonder sometimes huh? 11 LS: They probably do but I thought it was great that we could respect them and stand up when they come in. Doctor Martineau… MF: Now that is Eloise’s husband. LS: Eloise’s husband. John Martineau, that is his obituary. Just some of the ones. Doctor Way. (I also have his obituary). MF: Now that was Joyce’s… LS: Joyce’s husband. And he passed away, I have saved some of them. Some of us have had our eightieth birthdays and more. Lots of pictures of that kind of thing. And we have taken some trips with some of our nurse groups back to North Carolina one year we went to see Alice Berg Stephens. But she just passed away this last year. There was about four or five of us that went back and visited her and had a great trip. MF: Oh that is so great. LS: These here…Dorothy Mills Bird and there is Alice Berg Stephens, Coreen Cowley Berg, and this is Alice’s daughter, there is me and Yo Oka. So me and three of our husbands went back and spent a week. We had a great time with the reunion. MF: You all are such great friends and you had to rely on each other. LS: That is right. We have quite a few pictures of that group. Here is Mac Bird, that is Dorothy’s husband. And my husband. They were able to go. And then Alice’s husband was there. He has passed away since then. MF: What a great visit though. 12 LS: That was. These are just eightieth birthdays and things. (Pictures of our group who turned 80). MF: Get togethers, those are so great. Do you know how many of your friends are left? LS: Well I haven’t counted them up. But no, I better not say exactly without counting. I could count them for you. Do you want me to take the time while you are here? MF: That is alright. Those are great pictures. So that is your graduation picture right? LS: Well with one stripe. Because it seems like this might have been our first stripe. We would get more stripes on our caps as we went through the years because we were there for three years. That is how it was, three stripes up here and then the graduation. They don’t wear caps anymore do they? MF: They don’t. They don’t wear uniforms, they wear scrubs and yes, it is kind of a whole different aspect of it. LS: There is probably fifteen or sixteen of us left. MF: Fifteen. LS: Yes. MF: Is your group the one that had the two separate classes, the one that started in January and then there was one that started in June? Is that why it was so large? LS: Yes this was just our class. There has got to be one of them that showed all of them. This is the picture that showed some of them that were just six months ahead of us. Like Fujiki and Hoskins…they were six months ahead but they were in the same year. 13 MF: Did you still have your separate graduations? LS: Yes like Marge Miller and her sister Faye, they were six months apart through nursing but Marge was in our class but her sister was six months ahead of her. And then we had big sisters. I can remember our big sisters that we would help us along if we had questions or needed help or anything. MF: There was this lady named Anne Baldree? Was she in your group? LS: Yes. She was the same year as I was. MF: We are trying to get an interview set up with her because she is in Idaho. LS: She is. She may be coming down to the reunion I think. This is her. She was Anne Johnson, now it is Baldree. LS: This was my big sister. Erma Abel was her name. She was my big sister. She was a year ahead of me. The Big Sisters were kind of like our mentors. If we needed help, we could ask them questions. MF: Did you ever suntan up on the roof? LS: We did. We would go suntan on the roof occasionally. I have pictures of that. This is Alice Berg and myself. I loved to work in the nursery. MF: Was that your favorite floor? LS: It was. It was really fun. Things have changed a lot. Now they let the mom’s hold the babies and the grandma’s and everybody hold the baby. Everybody holds the baby, even the little children. MF: They do. LS: I know we had to keep them separate and not let anyone get close to them for fear they would get sick or get a disease. 14 MF: How long were the moms in bed? LS: Probably eight days after the birth. MF: They wouldn’t get them up at all, right? Would they just stay in bed most of the time? LS: I know my first child was born in 1948 and I paid eighty five dollars for the hospital stay and I was there eight days. And now they get mothers up and send them home the next day almost. MF: I was talking to Ruth Brown, do you remember Ruth Donaldson? LS: Yes. MF: We talked to her the other day. LS: Did you? MF: We had a great time and she was talking about that same thing, about how much that has changed in nursing, you were more bedside nurses, you take care of each of the needs whereas now it is the monitor, everybody tends the monitor. LS: I know. MF: It is just not as personal. LS: They write it on the computer and everything. MF: Exactly and that is how that goes. But yes, it was just interesting to think how long people would be in bed compared to now, now they just kick you out. LS: We have a granddaughter that is expecting this week and that is probably what will happen to her. She’ll go up and have the baby and go right home that day or the next. 15 MF: And then go back the next day. But insurance makes that possible. Insurance guarantees your stay, how long it will be. Well we appreciate you letting us come visit with you. 16