Oral History Program Dorothy Mills Bird Interviewed by Marci Farr 16 July 2008 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Dorothy Mills Bird Interviewed by Marci Farr 16 July 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: Dorothy Mills Bird, an oral history by Marci Farr, 16 July 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Dorothy Mills Bird Application Photo January 5, 1944 Graduation Photo Class of 1947 Dorothy Mills Bird September 10, 2008 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Dorothy Mills Bird. It was conducted July 16, 2008 and concerns her recollections and experiences with the Dee School of Nursing. The interviewer is Marci Farr. MF: This is Marci Farr. I am interviewing Dorothy Mills Bird. She graduated in 1947 from the Dee School of Nursing. It is July 16, 2008 and we are interviewing her in her home in North Ogden. Dorothy we just want to know a little bit about your family life, your early history. DB: I was born and raised in Bothwell, Utah. It is 6 miles west of Tremonton. I was born at home. Mother was attended by Dr. White who practiced in Tremonton. I was the middle child having a brother and three sisters older and a brother and three sisters younger. We lived in a small two-roomed house. When my last little sister was 9 months old, Mother and Daddy moved us into Brigham in June of 1937. I was 11 years old when I started the 6th grade in Brigham. I have always loved school. I loved everything about Brigham—the Junior High and graduating as a Box Elder “Bee.” I first started thinking about nursing when Daddy took us down to Ogden to see Mother in the Dee Hospital. She had had some surgery. We took the elevator up to the 4th floor. She was in a big ward called “H,” I think. There were around 15 or 18 patients in that ward. We walked the length of that room seeing sick people all the way down to her bed where we drew the curtains around her for some privacy. I left the group and walked out of the room and across the hall into a kitchen or utility room and looked out that back window. There I saw the 1 nurses walking from the hospital up to the Nursing Home. They had their white caps on and wore blue capes around their shoulders. I remember thinking, “Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful to be a nurse.” Even then I knew it would never happen. We didn’t have much and were quite poor but we were a close and loving family. Mother’s condition worsened after a time and she became completely bedridden from cancer of the bone. By this time, the three oldest children had left home and Jane and I took over the responsibility of helping Daddy with the home and watching over the younger children and the complete care of mother. We took turns rubbing her legs and back, learned to turn her, give her enemas, helping with her baths, etc…but she never left her bed for 2 years. The Relief Society President and sisters gave help many times. We both had our turns at staying home from school. Jane, being 2 years older missed more school than I did. Mother died in August of 1941. I began my sophomore year in September. Jane was a senior. She also had expressed a desire to be a nurse. In the early part of 1944, in my senior year, I was with my friends finishing up our gym class preparing to cross over to our next class. I overheard my friends talking about a nursing program in the army and the army paying for your nursing. I perked up and began to ask questions about where you went for the training and how you applied. I immediately began to find out more. I eventually filled out an application after talking with Daddy and Leone, my new mother. I told Jane about it but she was working and dating and had lost interest. Do you know that out of that whole group of excited girls, I was the only one who 2 followed through? So that’s where I heard about it, friends talking and me eavesdropping. MF: You had to go to be part of the army; how did that work? DB: My application went through the Thomas D. Dee nursing program. We were enlisted in the army and were issued a cadet nurse uniform. Then we began the regular nursing program at the Dee. There was a stipulation that when our training was finished, we owed a year’s time of serving in the regular army as a nurse. When we first went in, the upper class were spending their last 6 months up at the Bushnell Hospital in Brigham City. It was an army hospital. They then went on to serve other places, I guess. By the time we graduated in 1947, the war was over and we did not have to serve in the army. As I think back on high school, I am amazed at the classes I took. I took algebra, geometry, chemistry, microbiology, biology, physics, etc. I loved English and history. I never did take an elective in Girl’s Glee. All my friends did. Yet I loved music and I sang in a trio my senior year. I always found a way to sing…always in a ward choir. But look at the advantage I had when I went into the nursing program. Anyway, I graduated from high school in May of 1944 on Friday and on Sunday, my father and Leona took me down to Ogden and into the nursing home where Mrs. Woods met us. MF: Was she the housemother? DB: She was the housemother and she took me to my room. I was hoping to get one of the new rooms but they took me over to the old part of the nursing home. 3 Some of us had to live there. We had a good time in that part of the hospital. We were there until the next class graduated and then they moved us over into the new part. MF: Do you remember Mrs. Hogge? DB: Oh heavens yes, my husband knew them because he lived up the street. I did not know him then because he had gone in the service. Hogge’s ran a confectionery on the corner of 24th and Harrison, north of the hospital. Those boys and girls in that neighborhood used to go down to her place all the time. That was the meeting place. Yes, we went across the street many times on breaks. MF: When you first got there that Sunday what were your impressions? DB: Very nervous. A little frightened. Mrs. Woods was nice. I was shyer then than I am now. MF: Had you been away from home? DB: No, not really. MF: Tell me about some of your classmates. DB: We started out with a class of forty-nine. We were the largest class that ever came into training. By the time we had our capping six months later we had dwindled some. There were still more who dropped out. By the time we graduated we had twenty-four left. MF: So it was almost in half. DB: Yes. MF: Could you get married while you were a nurse? 4 DB: You were not allowed to get married and remain in the program. My first roommate was Renee Bohman. I really loved her, we had good times together and she was a top student. Half way through our training, her husband to be came home from the navy on leave and wanted to get married. She quit training. I was so sorry to see her leave. She either decided or knew that for her that was the important thing to do. We have remained friends all along. MF: Was she from Tremonton? DB: No she lived here in Ogden. She had a sister up in Morgan who she had lived with after her mother died. She used to take me with her when she would go on visits there. She would take me down to her father’s house at times—on Grant Avenue. In fact, she married a brother of her sisters husband. Now she is Renee Bohman. MF: What kind of classes did you take while you were at the hospital? You had some that were at the hospital and some at Weber College correct? DB: Right. We had to take some chemistry and microbiology and a lot of those types of classes. I was so grateful that I had taken those in high school. Physiology, anatomy, and those were at Weber College. It was the hard classes that caused many of the drop-outs. We would walk down or take the bus and then come back up the same way. We had what they called a nursing lab right there in the nurses home. Our instructor was Marie Manning. We had a dummy we used to call “Annie,” I think this one was called Annie, maybe it was the CPR one that was called “Annie.” We learned to bathe her, turn her, change the bed for her, everything. 5 MF: It was very hands on. DB: A lot of the “hands on” learning. After six months they started introducing us to the hospital. MF: Now was that after your six months you started to care for your own patients’ correct? Or was it after that? DB: No, after our capping at 6 months, they introduced us to the hospital. Our first shifts were 6-10 A.M. where we learned to do A.M. care. You put a basin of warm water by their bedside with a wash cloth and hand towel. Also their oral hygiene equipment so they could reach it and they prepared to freshen up for breakfast. Then we went back and cleared off their bedside table so we could pass out the trays. If the patient need help with A.M. care, we always gave it. We also gave them fresh water. After the trays were gathered in, we usually answered lights until it was time for us to go back to the Nursing Home for classes. At 4 P.M. we came back on duty and gave P.M. care in the same manner as above—passing and gathering trays and answering lights. Our shift usually ended at 6 P.M. Then we could go home to study. As we advanced with our classes, we also advanced in our care. Soon we started with one bath, then two or 3 baths. By the time we were on a full morning shift, we would have 5-7 baths—6 being the average and we did it all. A.M. care, bath, straightening the room, charting and going over for classes in the afternoon. There was always a “treatment” nurse and a “medication” nurse. If you had IV’s along with your meds, sometimes they would assign someone to 6 “IV’s.” We also began rotating to the different floors or specialties as medical, surgical, maternity, nursery, operating room, pediatrics, diet kitchen, and so forth. At the beginning, we were working 6 days a week. Sometime in the middle of the second year, we began to get an extra half day off. Finally, the last year we were getting 2 days off per week. That was heavenly. MF: Were you required to go to church if you had that day off? DB: I was trying to think if it was a requirement. It was better if you did but our class always went. Here or there. We went to two or three different wards. Sometimes we went to a ward with the ones that were in our class that lived in Ogden. We might go down to their ward. There were a couple of wards on the north part that we went to. In fact, I went to the ward that Mac lived in but I did not know him then, did not know his parents, and did not know anything about him. Six of us formed a double trio. Margaret Critchlow, Donna Sorenson, Lois Berlin, Alice Berg, Joyce Mordaunt, and myself. Dorothy Mills and Betty Jean VanDyke played for us. She was in a class one year behind us. We sang at churches when invited. We made a record once. MF: When you were in your home you had a roommate right? Did you have just one roommate? DB: Yes. MF: How did that all work when you first got there? DB: Two to a room. Some of them, I just found out a short time ago did not gel. There were switches with the roommates. Renee’ and I stayed roommates until she got married. Then I was assigned Ella Rose Lamborn and she was my 7 roommate. She went in to Polio nursing after our training was over. She and 2 or 3 others went to California—to Boise for a time. When Ella Rose came back to Ogden, about 2 or 3 years later, she contracted Polio and died from it. MF: Did she really? DB: Yes. She did not get to live very long and enjoy her time. MF: What was a typical day during your training? DB: Typical day...up at six, shower, down to chapel, devotional by six thirty, and then over to the hospital by seven. One of the fun things about nursing though, once a week we had a chorus practice, a nurses’ chorale. Brother Cragun would come in from Pleasant View to lead and teach us. I enjoyed that all through training. Then we would sing at different programs in the Ogden area. We would get over to the hospital and listen to a report and get assignments and then we start on after breakfast, gathering the trays, starting the baths. By the time we were doing that much we were probably working until noon, doing five or six baths, and then scurrying back for classes held in the nursing home; since we weren’t going down to Weber anymore. We were getting credit from Weber. Then we received more advanced classes for our training from the U. That is where our accreditation came from. We had both Weber and the University of Utah as giving us credit. MF: Who were some of your teachers, were they the doctors themselves and some nurses? DB: Sometimes they would have the doctors come and give their lectures and sometimes the nurses would follow up with other things. We had many lectures 8 from the doctors’ surgical procedures and medical procedures, all of those things were given by doctors. Most of the actual training and nursing of course was given by the nurses. Some of the Dr.’s who lectured us were Dr. Dumke, Surgery; Dr. Fisher, Urology; Dr. J. Olsen, Heart problems; Dr. D. Peterson, Internal Medicine; and Dr. Rogers. Nursing classes were taught by Miss Lucille Taylor, our Superintendent of Nursing. She taught Operating Room technique and Surgical Nursing. Ruth Brown taught us—maybe Medical Nursing; Miss Scoville taught us of all aspects of Obstetrics…Delivery Room, Maternity floor, the Nursery. Mrs. Miner taught Materia Medica and “Ethics.” I’m sure there were others. This is the time when we learned to stand up when a Dr. or Nurse Supervisor entered the room. At times we had to stand when an upper classman came into the room. Times have changed! MF: If you had a night or weekend off what was something you did? DB: Well occasionally if you could go home, you would. I used to ride the old puddle jumper up…do you know what the puddle jumper is? MF: Is it the Bamberger? DB: The Bamberger…up to Brigham and back. You had to have a Saturday and a Sunday in order to do that. Actually it got so then we had a day and a half off. It was quite awhile before we received two days off. We had to do our nursing studying along with our full-time hospital work, which the Weber kids did not have to do when they came. MF: Were there any traditions that you had at the hospital…that the nurses had? 9 DB: Probably. If you were lucky and were not working you could do some of the things that they did. Honestly, I cannot remember anything that was strictly tradition. Other than the capping ceremony I do not remember Christmas parties. Some of the others might, I just do not. I just remember how much I loved nursing, how enjoyable it was, and how close our class was and has remained close. I feel as close to those nursing friends as I do my own sisters. MF: You went through everything together. DB: You went through everything together and lived right there. That was the other thing, the Weber kids did not get to sleep in the nursing home. After we got out of our training, graduated, I was still working at the hospital; I was taking some classes at Weber, doing fun things during the day and working the night shift. One time I took a No dose three nights in a row, and went without sleep for 72 hours. I will never do that again. One experience was enough of trying to do that. MF: Tell me about your graduation ceremony. DB: We had it down at Weber College, I know we had it at Weber College and we had it in the gymnasium. I remember sitting up on the bleachers and then walking down to get our diplomas. When we graduated, the kids that were six months ahead of us graduated with us at the same time. Nurses were coming in every six months but one graduation. They had come in January and we came in June, but we graduated together. It was a lovely graduation. MF: Did you know any of the Dee family. Did you associate with any of them? 10 DB: I knew who they were and I saw them around. I knew Laurence Dee and Maude D. Porter; I worked over in that clinic afterwards. MF: Did you know Elizabeth Stewart? DB: Elizabeth Stewart was the one we knew most. Sometimes she would come to our annual Alumni meetings, not too often but occasionally. I would see her around in the hospital because I have worked in the hospital ever since I quit training. MF: When you graduated you did stay at the Dee? DB: I graduated in 1947 and got married May 7, 1948. I stayed at the Dee until summer came. No, that is not right. We went up to Logan and lived in a little trailer up by the USAC campus for three weeks until school was out. Then we came back to Ogden, lived in an apartment right close to the hospital. Mrs. Carlson, Myrtle Carlson was one of our 3-11 supervisors. I did not know if I wanted to live in her house or not and have her watching me. But we did and we lived there for the summer. Then we went back to Logan and I worked in the Cache Valley hospital in delivery room and floors. Then they closed that one down and the next year I worked at the Budge Hospital. Usually just two days a week because I was pregnant, throwing up at night when I was on duty. I got to work at hospitals where I received good training and good experience. Mac graduated from the USAC and we moved back to Ogden and that is where we have lived since. MF: After you came back from Logan did you work in any of the other hospitals in Ogden? 11 DB: The Dee was really the only hospital I worked at until they built St. Benedicts, and the only way I got into St. Benedicts was when I tried private duty nursing, and I got sent over there. Everybody clued you in on what you needed to do if you were working the night shift, “When they come by with the sacrament trays hide in the linen closet in the hall.” MF: Did you retire from St. Benedicts? DB: No, I was just there for duty nursing. Instead of going back to the hospital for two days a week I said I would try private duty nursing. Actually what I did with my life was—I would work two days a week to keep my hand in nursing. I worked at the Dee hospital mainly, consistently until I would get pregnant I’d work till about 6 months along—stop until I would have my baby and I would take off for six months. Then I would go back and work part time and then I would have another baby. I had eight children. MF: Do you have any specific memories of certain patients that you cared for, was there any, or were they just in and out? DB: Oh there are some that you remember. I remember working on orthopedics down on South Porch where there were three guys always goofing around with the nurses. You almost would rather get the men’s ward than the women’s ward because you could never get out of the woman’s ward. As soon as you got one patient done, somebody else would want something, you would get that done, then you would try and get out the door before someone else thought of something. MF: What was your favorite floor? 12 DB: Well, I really did not care for medical, though I worked it. I had to do a rotation on it. I loved surgical nursing floors. Post-op surgery because you could take care of them, they would heal, and go home. Then you would get somebody new in. I worked a lot of years in delivery room. I worked eleven to seven on that shift. Doctor Curtis, I ran into him one time in St. George in church and I said, “Oh Doctor Curtis, do you remember me?” and he says, “Oh yes, you are Mills and I can remember you looking like this, leaning over putting the drapes over the ladies legs” and he shut his eyes halfway and truly, I would be so tired that I just wanted to put my head on their knee and rest. You could not do that. That was an interesting place, too, because you were supposed to call the doctor just exactly when the baby was ready to deliver. If you did not call it right, sometimes the head would be coming out before the doctor got in there. You always retained a calm exterior. We had one nurse, a younger nurse, Belle Snow, and she would come running down the hall, “Oh the baby is coming, the baby is coming!” and she would go rushing down the hall with the cart and the family is all upset. “It is alright, take some deep breaths” and we would get her on the cart and up and into the delivery room and the doctor would get there in time to catch the head. That was not too often. Sometimes you called him too soon and the baby was in a different position and he had to wait. “Well call me when she is ready” type of thing and he would find an empty room to lie down in. That was why I enjoyed the delivery room—always a challenge. MF: While you were in the training did you receive any get pay? 13 DB: Now that was the good part of being a cadet nurse. I think the first year they gave us ten dollars a month. The next year they gave us twenty. When we were seniors we got thirty dollars a month. I have to tell this little story because it is for my family. MF: Please do. DB: Mac and I did not meet until the fall after I had graduated and moved into an apartment with Yo and Fumi. We met on a blind date. After a time we began to talk of serious things like paying tithing. He did not think he needed to pay on the money that the government was giving him. “I paid tithing on mine, Mac, I paid on my ten dollars, “Mac if you are not going to pay your tithing then…” you know, we had this little conversation. So he was going to prove me wrong that he wouldn’t have enough to live on. He began to pay and found out he had all he needed. He will tell you that he learned about paying tithing because I paid tithing on mine. MF: That is great thank you for sharing that with us. DB: So that is just a little thing for the family. MF: When you were a nurse you had your medicines that you had to dispense them yourself. Did you have to do the doses and everything? Or had they come to pills by then? DB: Well most of them were the tablets in their form. When you were giving hypos, you had to figure…like morphine came in a quarter grain and they ordered an eighth. You had a Bunsen burner and a teaspoon across with water in it boiling. You dropped the needle in to sterilize it. You would draw up your syringe of 14 water after putting the tablet in. Then you drew up the right amount of water, You would shake the syringe till the tablet dissolved and then squirt half of it out to get the right dosage and give it to the patient. Penicillin came in while we were either in nursing or right at the end of it. The sulfa drugs were new. They started having Polio patients’ right after we got out of training. I remember seeing the iron lungs down there on the bottom floor in what used to be central supply. Some of the nurses went into Polio and they traveled around to different parts of the United States working in the Polio units. We did not have any Polio when I was in nursing. MF: You mentioned you had taken a couple more classes after you got out of your nursing. DB: It was just for fun. In Geography classes we went on trips, met some guys, and had fun. MF: Just enjoyed it. DB: Yes, just enjoyed…did three quarters of English. I kept working full time all the time. MF: That is all the questions I have so we are going to keep the camera on behind me and you can just show me your nursing memorabilia. DB: Oh. I did want to tell you…I would work two nights and then have the baby and come back in six months. I did that up until the time my first son went on a mission and then I went full time while he had his mission. Then I went back to my two days, and then full time for the next one, and back to two days a week 15 and full time for the next one back off like that ‘til the last two boys. Then an opportunity came in the recovery room to go full time and I took it. MF: You said that was your favorite, you liked the recovery. DB: Yes I liked recovery. That was my last experience and that is where I worked full time the most. Since I cannot find my other pictures, this is my graduation picture. I had sent one to my brother who was in the service in Japan. He took that little black and white picture, the small 3x5 black and white picture and gave it to someone over there that did this. He painted me this. When I first saw…“Oh my hair is too red and I look green, I do not like green.” I got used to looking at it. It came all rolled up like a scroll and I would unroll it and show people. Finally when I got in this home, it may be our last and I thought, I am going to hang the picture that was done in Japan. MF: That is a great picture. DB: I got this plaque for thirty-four years at the hospital. Actually I would consider that I had…if I graduated in 1947 and I retired in 1987…that is forty years. But that is ok; thirty-four is close enough. MF: It is only six off. DB: Today I found my little booklet, my guest booklet. I had forgotten that I had one. Everybody wrote in it, here at the front congratulations. MF: That is wonderful. DB: I was going to say, you are going to see so many things from everyone else… MF: We are fine. We are happy to look at what you have. DB: Here I am in my cadet nurse uniform. 16 MF: That is great. DB: I could not find my capping picture of our group. I do not know if you want to take any of these, I had this capping picture. At least I found the paper one with the program. MF: That is great. DB: I think this is where I got my twenty year award. I was eight months pregnant and still working. MF: Oh that is great. DB: Here is Eva Jean Law, Nursing Supervisor, giving me my 20 year award. MF: Oh is this the reunion? DB: That is only part of them but that is the one with the most of us that made it to the reunion. Actually some of our friends never made it back and we felt so bad. MF: That is too bad. DB: I found I had a history of it. This little book here is just every time we have been to a class I put my nurse friends in a separate book. That is Joyce Mordaunt isn’t it? No this is Yoshiko Iwamoto Oka, we call her Yo. You really should interview Yo. During the war, she felt discriminated against. She had applied at the Budge—I was accepted and ready to enter—and someone refused to let her enter. So she came to the Dee instead. Our graduation party was up at Patio Springs. A couple of years ago I said to her that I didn’t get a picture of her. Then she told me that she and Fumi and other orientals were refused entry to Patio Springs. I never realized that that was going on. 17 She—you can almost say—she is the one that has been instrumental in keeping us together. I have an older sister that kept our family together. Yo, she has kept in touch with everyone. MF: That is great. DB: Except for those that refuse to be kept in touch with. So that is Yo. MF: Oh great. DB: There I was receiving another award. Some of my retirement days…anyway, I have skipped around. MF: You are absolutely fine. That is great. DB: Now did you see these? Hand me that please. That last reunion they had taken pictures of us in these big things. MF: In the panoramic. DB: You have interviewed Helen Farr? MF: We are doing her tomorrow. DB: She will show you more stuff than I have got. She was before us. She was almost a senior. MF: I think we saw that one yesterday, on Monday from our friend Alta. DB: This is probably one of our biggest reunions. MF: That is great. DB: When I am taking a picture I have to make sure everybody’s face is shown. They have done a good job here except, look, there is one girl and I do not know who that is. Her face is hidden there. Other than that it is really a good picture. MF: It is a great picture. 18 DB: I haven’t framed them. MF: Is that where you meet for the reunions for the alumni? The hospital? DB: Yes at the hospital. We have gone to the country club other years. MF: So it just depends. DB: There is just one more thing there I would like to show you. When I retired, the kids in recovery room were so sweet. They made me this scrap book. I have never had one. MF: That’s nice. DB: I designed this Recovery Room Record sheet for our charting for them. They put all kinds of stuff, letters and stuff. To the back here…there is the nursing picture that was taken from. I will bet my capping pictures in here too. Maybe that is where it is at and I forgot where I put it. Then some more pictures in the recovery room and different items. This is what recovery room looked like—no—my capping picture is not here. MF: Oh that is wonderful. I know, most of the time you are eyes closed right? DB: If you will hand me that nurse in there. That is what they gave me (I am pointing to my Iladro Nurse in my “What Not” cabinet). MF: The big nurse? DB: Just pull the door open. I will sit here and hold it. This was my retirement gift from recovery room and this scrapbook. MF: That is wonderful. DB: Is not that wonderful? We used to talk about when we retired, “How should we take our retirement?” When I retired I did what most of them said they had done. 19 I took ten years for sure or life was the way it was. That is what JoAnn did. Well I have lived twenty years beyond so I have really done well on my retirement. MF: That is great. Love it when it works out that way. DB: JoAnn is one of the nurses you will not be able to interview. She retired about four years after I did; she got cancer of the liver and was dead in about three years, which is all she received on her retirement. We do not know how things are going to go for us, ever. MF: We never know. DB: It is all a guess. I cherished my nursing time and experiences. I was always grateful that I was able to do nursing, help people. Of course, when you are a nurse the neighborhood calls on you a lot. You get to give shots, I did a lot of home care for some of the people in our ward, or saw to it that they got it. MF: Yes. DB: Things you do when you are Relief Society President… MF: You probably felt if you could help you would do it. DB: I was so grateful, I had to get up and bear my testimony, give thanks that I had that privilege. It really was a privilege. MF: I am glad you were able to share your story with us. We appreciate you taking time for us. I am glad you called. DB: Thank you for coming. I have enjoyed your visit and have appreciated reminiscing. 20