Oral History Program Katherine Francis Crawford Interviewed by Marci Farr 7 October 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Katherine Francis Crawford Interviewed by Marci Farr 7 October 2010 Copyright © 2010 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 St. Benedict’s School of Nursing was founded in 1947 by the Sisters of Mount Benedict. The school operated from April 1947 to 1968. Over the forty-one year period, the school had 605 students and 357 graduates. In 1966, the program became the basis for Weber State College’s Practical Nursing Program. This oral history project was created to capture the memories of the graduates and to add to the history of nursing education in Ogden. The interviews focus on their training, religion, and experiences working with doctors, nurses, nuns, and patients at St. Benedicts Hospital. This project received funding from the Utah Humanities Council and the Utah Division of State History. ____________________________________ 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: Katherine Francis Crawford, an oral history by Marci Farr, 7 October 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Katherine Francis Crawford Graduation Photo Class of 1955 Katherine Francis Crawford October 7, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Katherine Francis Crawford, conducted by Marci Farr and Sarah Langsdon, on October 7, 2010. In this interview, Katherine discusses her recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. Melissa Johnson was also present during the interview. MF: This is Marci Farr. We’re interviewing Kay Crawford, who graduated from St. Benedict’s School of Nursing in 1955. It is October 7, 2010, and we are interviewing her at her home in Harrisville, Utah. Tell us a little bit about where you grew up, about your family, and where you attended school. KC: I was born in Ogden, and when I was about three months old, my parents, who were immigrants from Italy, since there was no work here, moved to –Dines, Wyoming at that time - but I was raised in Rock Springs. Unfortunately, soon after they moved to Dines; my sister was four, and I was eleven months old by that time, my dad was killed in a mine accident. So then we moved into Blairtown, which is another town outside of Rock Springs, and then my mother about eight years later remarried, because she was very young when dad was killed. They went into the hotel business there in Rock Springs, so that’s where I was raised, and I graduated from Rock Springs High School in ’52. I actually came down to nurses’ training here because I had two aunts – my real dad’s sisters lived here, and my mother and dad wanted me to be someplace where I had some family. My roommate was also from Rock Springs; she just lived up the street, and we graduated together and we came down here together. 2 MF: What was her name? KC: Sue Motichka. She’s the one who lives in Rawlins. Well, let’s see, it wouldn’t be Motichka, it’s Maffoni is her name now. So that’s how I got down here. My aunts really did take care of me – they’d have us down for dinner, and kind of watched over me. Then Mom would come down to visit, and then she could stay with them. So that worked out really well. I had come down here often as a young girl and stayed with my aunts, and at that time they were building St. Benedict’s, when I would come down. I remember the last time I had come, and it was by then a hospital, and it was way up in the hills. There was nothing. There was Harrison Boulevard. I remember thinking, that hospital way up there… but I never had any idea that I would end up as a student nurse there. That’s my first memory of St. Benedict’s, is up in the hills. It was so far away – now, of course – then when I entered, I couldn’t believe that it was the same place. I thought, what happened? This isn’t the place I used to remember when I was younger. But of course, it had become surrounded. MF: That’s good. Why did you decide to become a nurse? Was there a reason? KC: You know, I had never planned to be a nurse. My best girlfriend, we’d been best friends since we were six. She lives in Denver – she’s not a nurse – in fact, she was just here. She comes every year, and we e-mail every day. Her mother was a nurse in Rock Springs. She did a lot of special duty nursing. I used to just think she looked so neat in her crisp uniform and her cap, and I always admired her so much and thought what a great thing she did. But it still never entered my mind, and I was a senior, and I had taken all office courses, because I was going to be 3 a secretary. I’d actually been offered a job. Later in my senior year, I just decided no, I think I want to be a nurse. I had talked with my classmate, and she said, “Well, I’m going to go down to St. Benedict’s.” I don’t know that my mother and dad were really sold on this – I think they worried about me leaving, because my sister stayed there. She didn’t go to college, and I think they were just very – in that culture, you’re just kind of protected, and I think they just hated to see me leave home. So I said, is this really what I want to do? And you know, I just really had never taken any courses for it; I wasn’t really prepared for that. I thought, I hope I can get in, because you had to pass an entrance exam, and I had no idea if I would have the knowledge to get in. But I made up my mind, so I graduated from high school, and that summer you had to go down – you had to make the contacts and get in touch with the school. It seems to me that it was during the summer. Sues mother came down with us on the train, and we took the entrance exam at St. Benedict’s. Then you didn’t know until later in the summer whether you were accepted or not. We both did get accepted. I had had no chemistry, and so that of course was a requirement when I got in, but they said they thought I could pick it up, because of my grade average. But I had a tough, tough time. I remember Sister Estelle was the chemistry teacher, and bless her heart, she’d spend a lot of time with me after school, because I said, I’m just not getting this. She said, I’ll work with you extra. So 4 bless her heart, she got me through that course. So anyway, that’s kind of how it all started. MF: That’s how it all began. So this was your first time away from home? KC: Actually, it was. Because I was in drama, I had gone to Laramie and different places. I was in the singing group and we would leave – but it was just in the state of Wyoming, to perform and compete and such. But no, other than that – and believe me, I had a horrible time. My roommate and I would cry, and we were homesick. The course was tough, and the first six months you could go home on the weekend, so we’d go home on the bus, but we’d cry… here again, Sister Estelle was our advisor for our class. We used to go to her and cry and say, “We’re homesick, and we don’t know if we want to do this.” She said, “It means you came from a good home if you get homesick. It means you had a good childhood and a good home.” So she encouraged us, but it was tough. That first six months is rough. You’re completely away from home, and you’re going to school. Right away you’re starting in the hospital; from the beginning, you are working in that hospital, and you’re twenty-four seven, you’re right here at this building. Even the girls who lived in Ogden had to live at the St. Benedict’s dorm. They could go home on the weekend if they weren’t involved in something, but you had to live there. The sisters were very strict, and there were a lot of rules, and you had to comply with the rules, or you were done. We had thirty-two girls start, and sixteen of us graduated. So that’s how difficult that course was. MF: Wow. So do you think once you made it up to that six months? 5 KC: It was hard all the way through, except that you became older and you became more – we were what they called the probies, so it was just like in any college. We were the ones who didn’t know anything, and you looked up to the older students to help you. They were always tremendous. We had the first, second, and third year, and the second and third year girls would kind of take over the first-year girls and help us. But you really had to just want to do it and want to finish and want to do that, because it was a difficult course. MF: You couldn’t just do it because you went, oh, I’m going into nurses’ training just to say that. KC: You had to be dedicated, and they found out within the first six months whether or not you were ready for that, you were made for that school. If not, you were gone. So many girls just said, I can’t do it, and they didn’t want to be away from home, and it was just difficult, and they just quit. Usually it happened in the first six months. MF: So I’m sure once you got to your capping, you were so excited. KC: Yes, once you did your capping – and we did our capping in January. This was the picture of the capping, and actually it was my roommate and I – I don’t know how we got picked for the picture; anyway, this was my roommate and myself, and then this was Jo Davis. She was of Indian descent, and she was from some fort, some Indian fort somewhere. But anyway, there we were with our capes. I still have my cape – I don’t have my cap any more, but I still have my cape. We would have a ceremony with the candles, and your family all came. It was a really nice ceremony. So we did that at about six months – I’m trying to see what 6 the date was on this newspaper. January 25th of 1953. So we entered in ’52, so it was about six months. MF: Six months into it. Very nice. KC: So in order to make it – usually if you didn’t make it, you didn’t get to capping. So that was your big thing MF: So that probably was a big deal. KC: Yes, when you got your cap, you knew you were pretty much on your way. MF: One of the nurses told us that she was so excited that day she got her cap, she slept in it. She said, we were so proud we slept in our caps. KC: I don’t remember doing that. See, when you first went in, you didn’t have a cap. I don’t remember if we even had uniforms. I can’t remember. But then when you got that cap and that uniform, and your cape, it was really quite a ceremony. It was really a big deal. MF: Where did that take place? KC: Actually, in the dorm waiting room. You came in the front door, and it was a really nice waiting room, as I recall, the floors were kind of a marble, and it was decorated really nice. That’s where you greeted your guests, or if you had a date come and pick you up, that was as far as they could go, was that room. That’s actually where the capping ceremony was held, because there weren’t that many of us. MF: Tell us a little about some of your other classmates. Are there any funny stories about them that you remember? KC: About my other classmates? 7 MF: Or your roommate. KC: Sue, who came down with me from home, was my roommate, but you became sisters with these girls. You became really close to them. I’m really close to the ones that are in Layton. We actually just became so close – this was your life, this is who you knew, this is who you were with every day. You became really close with your classmates, and there was never a classmate that I didn’t like, that I wasn’t close to, that I cared about. You just became one group. We had to work together on some services. You usually went through the same services with pretty much the same girls, so it was just really a family. You became friends with the upperclassmen, and they looked out for you. Then as the next group came in, we became the next group, and you just looked out. So the three years that you were there, those groups that you were with, you became really close to, and you liked everybody else. MF: Probably just for the reason of what you had to go through, to have their support. KC: You did, because you’d kind of commiserate together. I remember we had a TV room. You didn’t get up there much, but you’d go up, and we’d make popcorn, and whoever was off or not having to study or something would be there. I remember watching the Hit Parade a lot. I don’t know why that sticks in my mind, the Hit Parade, but anyway… We would do things together, and on holidays. You know, it was just groups of girls, and we were all close, really close. So that was a nice part of my life. You don’t forget them. MF: And are you still close? I can’t imagine having to do that, and the things you’d learn, and not having those people there to be able to support you. 8 KC: Yes, because when my older daughter – she’s a respiratory therapist, and she went to Weber College, but she lived at home. So she didn’t get into all of that college life. She just went to school and did her thing, she didn’t enter into anything. My younger daughter started working for a doctor when she got out of high school – she’s been with him for twenty-nine years. I wanted one of them to go into nursing, but that’s not what they wanted. They’re kind of still in the medical field, and of course, Kelly became a respiratory therapist. But I could see it wasn’t the same. You know, there just wasn’t that camaraderie that we had. There wasn’t that closeness, and those memories, and those fun things that you did together. I didn’t see that. MF: Just a very different experience. KC: Yes, it was totally different. MF: Tell us what you remember most about the sisters. KC: I was thinking today about them. I remember the swishing of the skirts. You know, you’d be in your room, because we’d leave our doors open, and you could hear their skirts swishing, and that was the funniest thing. We’d say, here comes sister so-and-so – I can hear the swishing of her skirt. You knew she was checking on you, or she was looking for you to babysit for one of the doctors. We hated to do that. We’d hide in the closet or something, and say, or tell her we were busy, because we didn’t like to babysit. The doctors kind of relied on the students, and they’d call the sisters and say, “We need a babysitter, will you find someone?” And of course, they’d come down looking for you. No, they would check on you. But it was so funny when we’d talk about the swishing of the skirts, 9 because they had those long habits on, and you could just hear them coming down the hall. See, they lived with us. We had two floors to the nursing home. The upstairs – you lived upstairs when you were first entering, and the sisters lived at the south end of the hall. You didn’t go down there, because that was private – that was the sisters’ quarters. Then you had the two halls, and that was the younger students, and then when you got to be a senior and a junior, if you were lucky, then you moved downstairs. Then we had the south end, where they had nurses who lived – that’s where our house mother lived. She lived right with us too, and then they had nurses who worked at the hospital who weren’t married, and they supplied room and board for them. So we were all in one building. If there was commotion or something, they’d just come and check on you. Or your house mother did. I remember when Sue and I were seniors, you had to really behave yourself, because Lena was right down the hall. They did check on you, but they let us party and laugh. They were really good about that. There were the favorite sisters – Sister Estelle was really a mentor of both of us, and she was wonderful. She became the administrator of the hospital later on. Sister Berno – we called her the head honcho. She was the one that was the most intimidating. She’d fold her arms and look at you – they never called you by your first name, they called you “Miss Francis”, or always “Miss”, they never called you by your first name. They never gave you that confidence. But we had a great group of sisters. 10 Sister Mercy was actually in our class. She didn’t start with us, but she graduated with us. But she lived with the sisters. Then she actually took over the OB – she was in charge of OB. I worked for her for a while. So they did have some sisters who would graduate with a class. She was real cute. We’d invite her to the parties and stuff, and she was real cute, but she did more or less have to stay with the order. MF: Outside of the hospital, did you have any activities that you would do with them? KC: Once in a while we’d go over with the Dee nurses and have an activity. That was the only other school we associated with. You could leave; of course, none of us owned cars, so you’d take the bus, and you could go to the movie if you were off. I remember – you kids are too young – Vogel’s was down on 30th Street, and I don’t know what’s there now, but that’s where you’d get a hamburger. Then right there where this coffee shop is, they had Judy’s Ice Cream. So we went to Judy’s Ice Cream, and down to Vogel’s, and then if you were lucky and had some money, which your parents had to send to you – we earned no money – so you’d maybe get to go to the show. You could date, you were allowed to date. We had a sign-in book; you did have a curfew, and you had to go in and out of the front of the hospital at the front desk, and they signed you in and out. Then you had to enter the nursing home via a tunnel, which we called The Tunnel. That was the scariest thing – I hated that tunnel. Because it was after evening, you had to go through the tunnel. Otherwise, you could go through the back door and over to the nursing 11 home. But you did sign in and out. They always knew if you were in or out. They kept very close tabs on you. MF: So did you ever try sneaking in without signing out? KC: Oh, I’m sure we did. We had one gal – her name is Allie – actually, she goes to my church, and she’s older now, she’s like in her eighties. She worked at the desk, she worked at St. Benedict’s. I’d say to her, do you remember when you would be so good and we’d be late, and we’d tell you not to report us, and you were so good to say, “Well, I won’t report you this time…” And she remembered that. She said, “I remember your class very well.” I said, we were kind of stinkers. But they all did that – but she would be so cute. She would say, just go on. Just sign in, and we won’t say anything. But they were pretty strict, because they had to know where you were at all times. Then, if they thought you had bent the rules or something – you got confined to the library. I never did. I don’t think anybody in our class did, but some did. You’d get confined to the library for a week. You couldn’t do anything. MF: No fun. KC: No – so some of the girls, I know there were a few – got caught bending the rules, and they’d get confined to the library. You made sure you stayed out of trouble, because it just wasn’t worth it. MF: Tell us about some of your instructors that you remember. KC: When I was going over that list, Lavinia McKellar was one of them, and she was the one who – she was killed in an accident at the dam. We had a lot of the doctors who were instructors, and the one doctor that stands out in my mind is 12 Dr. Swindler, because we were scared to death of him. He was an orthopedic surgeon here – a very good orthopedic surgeon. Dr. Nelson was one who taught us OB, and actually I ended up working for him. Then – he and Dr. Naisbitt – and I actually was there forty years, but Dr. Nelson died while I was there. Dr. Jorgenson taught us – we had a lot of doctors who came in and taught us. Then Lavinia McKellar, of course, was the head of the nurses, and she was one of our teachers. That’s mainly all the ones I can remember. I just remember the doctors coming in. We had classes downstairs in the basement – our classrooms were in the basement of the nursing home. That’s where the classrooms were, that’s where the dummies were that you worked on and learned how to give treatments. We actually worked on each other; we drew blood from each other, we dropped gastric tubes down each other, we were kind of the guinea pigs for each other, but we also had this dummy. We had a name for her, and I cannot remember her name, but we had this dummy that we worked on. All the classes were held right within the building, so you didn’t leave the campus. You didn’t leave there for anything. MF: So no affiliations with Weber at all? KC: No affiliation with Weber, no affiliation as far as schooling with the Dee. They had their own setup, so everything was contained right in our own school, in our own hospital. Of course, most of your learning came at the hospital. We actually staffed the hospital. We had the RNs, the people who worked there, and we worked under them, but we were a main part of the staff. As you got into your 13 older years, you were in charge of floors, you were in charge at night, so you had a big responsibility when you became seniors. Because by that time, they figured you were ready to be a nurse. It was a lot of responsibility – we learned very quickly. Good experience, because we had a lot of hands-on patient care, that’s what it was all about. So we did that for three years. After your first six months as probies, you kind of went over and did bed baths, and followed the other gals around, and did the PM care. PM care was a lot different at that time. You actually went in and helped bathe the patient, clean them up, you gave them back rubs – now, you know, when I’ve been a patient, there’s no such thing as PM care. They don’t do that. So those are the things that we did to start out with. Then you started to move into actually doing procedures: catheterizations, starting IVs, passing meds. You were just right into it by that time. MF: That probably is the difference, where you had the hands-on, the clinicals; that was such a big part of your training. You think about it now, and it’s so different, where they have the technology and all these things, but look at what you were able to do, the personal care. KC: My sister’s oldest daughter is a nurse, and she worked for me in my office, and she was a two-year graduate from Weber. I saw a whole different thing; it was mostly Weber school, and the hands-on care, you know, they just went to the hospital. It was a whole different program. I thought, boy, that had to be hard for them to go into the hospital and get a job and work. That had to be difficult. MF: Because they have no experience to draw on. 14 KC: Yes, nothing to fall back on. MF: Was Jeane Barker there at that time? KC: Yes, she was our director of nursing. She was so sweet. She married – not while we were in training, but she married Dr. Morton later. I think she’s still living, I’ve never seen her. MF: She is; we just interviewed her about a month ago. KC: Did you really? MF: She’s darling, absolutely. She’s sharp as a tack. KC: She’s got to be in her eighties. MF: I think she’s eighty-seven. KC: She’s got to be. I have to tell you a funny story about her, and I’m sure I told her – the first day we came in, we had been accepted, and we had packed our stuff, and we headed down to St. Ben’s. They had assigned us our rooms, and we were down looking at the schedule, and I saw this little tiny gal in this white uniform. She had this little crinoline hat on, and I said to Sue, do you think she’s the maid? She said, I don’t know, maybe she is. I said, but she’s got a uniform. Then she came down to introduce herself, and here she is, Jeane Barker, the director of nursing. But she had this little crinoline cap that looked like the little maid ones. MF: Massachusetts General. KC: Yes, from Massachusetts. So anyway, she had the funny cap, and I thought she was the maid. I’m sure I later told her that story. But anyway, we thought “Gee, we have a maid?” 15 MF: Lucky us! KC: But here she was, one of the big honchos. But she was very, very nice. She was wonderful to the students. I can’t remember if she had anything to do with our teaching – she must have, but I remember she was very involved with our capping and all of our ceremonies, and she was always there for us. You know, if you had a problem for something, you could always go to her. She was great, she was just wonderful – I just loved her. MF: She seemed like she was so passionate about her teaching. KC: She was. She was excellent. MF: It was fun. She called, and she’s like, “I don’t know if you’d want to talk to me.” Yeah, we’d want to talk to you. KC: Oh, yeah, because she was a big part. I didn’t know whether she was – I’d never seen an obituary on her, you know, and she was at the last reunion, so I knew she was probably still living, but then we were so happy that she later got married. She did have a daughter named Amy – I can’t remember – it wasn’t during our years that she was married, but we were so tickled when she got married, because I think she was older when she got married. MF: I think she was, too, but yeah, she’s wonderful. We were excited. Now, did you have rotations outside of St. Ben’s? KC: Yes. Our class went to Children’s Hospital. You had to spend three months at Children’s Hospital; you went in groups of four. That was interesting because every school sent a group of four, so they were from Idaho, they were from Colorado, they were from all over, and you all merged there. I did go with my 16 roommate, but there you lived in what they call Tammen Hall. It was down below Colfax Avenue, and you had your own room, so you spent three months there, and you worked at Children’s Hospital, and Tammen Hall was next door. Now, as the later years came in, the girls went to Hastings, Nebraska for psychiatric, but our class didn’t get to do that. So the only affiliation we had was in Denver. MF: That’s good to know. So what was your favorite rotation when you were at the hospital, on the floors? KC: My least favorite was psychiatry. That’s when they were performing lobotomies, and that’s when you’d put your patients down into a coma, and I remember that room – they called it the strong room – they told us never to go in there without an orderly or somebody with us. One day this lady was just screaming bloody murder, and I went in to check on her, and I’ll never forget – she took me and just literally threw me against the wall. I thought, “This is it, I’m going to die.” Luckily, the orderly had seen me go down there, and he came down and immediately intervened. To me, that was the most scary rotation. I did not like the psychiatric part. MF: Because you have no idea. KC: You have no idea, and it was just so scary, and those patients were just very frightening, ‘cause you’re young – so that rotation I didn’t care for. I think my favorite was surgical nursing, and the OB department, which I worked in for a short time after I graduated. And Children’s Hospital, even though you were working with children and seeing children die, and I think that was the hard part of that, and the terrible diseases they had. Hydrocephalics; they had a special 17 room just for the hydrocephalics, and when you went in to take care of them, their heads were so big, and they didn’t know what to do with them back then, and you’d have to lay the head on something and hold the body. I have visions of that. It was so, so hard. MF: That would be, because they had all the worst cases I’m sure, because it was the hospital that would be trying to find the cure. KC: Right. They had a burn center there that was really difficult to work in, and you had to rotate through all of their areas. Actually, that’s where I had met my husband. He was stationed at Lowry Air Force Base, and I was there for those three months. I enjoyed it, but at the same time, there was a lot of heartache with that particular service, because you see little children die. That’s hard when you’re that young, and you’re having to see children so sick, and you’d never seen that before. We would see adults die, but to see children die, you know, was hard. That was the summer before my senior year, so by that time – that was the only affiliation we had outside of the hospital. MF: You couldn’t be married, right, at that time, during your training? KC: No. They kind of frowned on you even becoming engaged, but I did – a lot of us were engaged, and I did get engaged in December of my senior year. You were not allowed to wear that engagement ring, so with your uniform, we had a little pocket on there, and you’d safety pin your ring inside your pocket. So if anybody saw that safety pin, they knew you were engaged. So that was a symbol of oh, she’s engaged. You know, they didn’t push it, because they were afraid – and it was difficult, because I had to come back and do my whole senior year; my 18 husband had another year in the Air Force, so we were actually separated. And it was difficult, because that’s not where I wanted to be, and it’s just hard to do a year, and you want to be with your fiancé and you can’t be. So my senior year was difficult. It was a difficult year as far as what we had to accomplish by that time, plus the fact that I didn’t want to be there. So I kept thinking, am I going to finish? And I’d say to my fiancé, I think I’m going to chuck this – and he’d say, no, you’ve got to finish, and I’ve got to finish what I’m doing, and then we’ll both start our careers. He was very encouraging about me not leaving. But boy, there were times when I thought, I can’t do this anymore. All the other girls were dating and stuff, and going out, and you’re kind of stuck. I told my girls I didn’t advise that. That’s hard. You should just keep yourself free while you’re trying to get your education. Figure out what you’re doing. MF: That would be hard. What do you think was your greatest challenge while you were in nurses’ training? KC: The greatest challenge? I think just getting finished. That was my greatest challenge, was whether I was going to graduate. You just hope you meet that graduation day with all the qualifications, and then to make your state boards, because – we actually had to stay there. My husband was discharged from the service in May, so he actually came out here. He was from Georgia, and he was just going to come out while I graduated, and our plans were to live there. Then he thought, in June, that I was done, but you’re not. You have to actually have thirty-six full months, so I wasn’t done until September, and I had to explain that 19 to him. I said, I cannot leave in June. I have to complete the course. He said, “Well, I don’t want to be separated again, so I’ll just stay here for the summer, until you finish.” Then he really liked it here. He liked the mountains, and coming from Georgia was different, and so anyway, that’s why we settled – he got on with the government, and we decided to settle here. So anyway, the big challenge is to meet that graduation day and to pass those state boards. You don’t take those until October. We went down to the Salt Lake Capitol to take those; there were three days we had to stay down there, and that was my biggest challenge, was ‘am I going to pass state boards?’ Our whole class passed, so that was good. MF: That would be a hard thing. Tell us a little bit about graduation. KC: Graduation took place at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. The Bishop came from Salt Lake to award your diplomas, and Dr. Nelson was a speaker and would introduce us, and then you’d go before the Bishop. So actually you’d line up - this picture was actually taken down in the basement of the church - and they had given us roses. So you went in a procession from the back of the church, and you processed up the aisle, and as you approached the front Dr. Nelson called your name. You went up onto the altar, and you were presented with your diploma, and you went over to the Bishop and you had to kneel before him. Then you rotated out and went to your seat. Very impressive, and of course all the families were there, and all the sisters were there. A lot of doctors were there. We had a lot of support from doctors. Doctors supported the students, so the place was packed. 20 Then we had a reception downstairs, and then you were free to do what you wanted to do after that. Like I said, my fiancé had come, so it was just a really impressive ceremony, and these beautiful roses. You thought, gee, finally made it down this aisle. I remember breathing a sigh of relief when I got handed that diploma, but I still wasn’t a nurse, you know; you still had that next step to take your state boards. Then when you got that certificate, you knew you were there. MF: Tell us just a little bit about what you did after graduation. KC: I was working on the surgical floor, and I loved it there. My husband was working, and I actually had moved back to the nursing home in that adult area. We lived in an apartment for a while, my roommate and another girl, but then they both decided to go back home to their own hospitals, so I couldn’t stay in the apartment alone. Mother said, no, that’s too scary for you. So I moved back to the nursing home. My husband was living in a boardinghouse. So I was working on third surgical, and then Sister Berno, who was one of the ones we were so intimidated by, came to me and said, “They’re needing somebody up in OB, and I’d like you to go there.” I remember thinking, that’s not what I want to do. I said, “It’s not where I want to go.” She said, “Well, you know, you’re a graduate of St. Benedict’s; we did give you a scholarship.” I had been awarded a scholarship my junior year by the alumni association, and I felt so obligated. I thought, you don’t say no. So, with a heavy heart, I went up to OB, because it was all those nurses that had worked there for so many years. I knew I was starting right at the bottom. So of course I worked the three to eleven; I 21 worked the holidays; I was on call. By that time, I had gotten married. We had waited a year, but then that January had gotten married, and that’s about the time they sent me up there. I was really unhappy. It just wasn’t working out. My husband was working days and had entered Weber College, and it was just crazy. I mean, holidays I worked, I was on call, I mean – I thought, this isn’t working out for me. So one of the head nurses in the nursery said, “Dr. Dean Nelson was here, one of the OB men. Do you know him?” I said, “Well, yes, I used to babysit for him.” She said, “He’s looking for an office nurse; would you be interested in that?” I said, “Boy, I don’t know. That’s a far cry from what I’m doing. I really don’t want to leave St. Benedict’s.” She said, “You know, why don’t you just go down for the interview and see how you feel about it?” So I went down for the interview. Well, Dr. Byron Naisbitt walked in, and I thought, what’s he doing in here? I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m supposed to be interviewing with Dr. Nelson.” He said, “Did you not know we were partners?” I said, “No, I didn’t.” This Dr. Naisbitt, do you know who he is? MF: Yes, yes. KC: Anyway, he’s so handsome. I thought, “Oh, my word. I remember scrubbing for him, and I can’t work for this man.” He said, “Yes, we’re partners. You’d be working for both of us.” I said, “Me alone?” And he said, “Yes. You’d be covering everything in here. We just have one girl.” I thought, well, okay – Dr. Nelson came in and they both sat down with me, and they offered me the same wage as I was making at the hospital; I was going to have holidays off, weekends off. So I 22 thought, how can I say no? I like the office, I like them – I knew Dr. Nelson better than I did Dr. Naisbitt – so I did, I went to work for them. It’s kind of a no-no when you do that. Sister Berno was not thrilled that I had made that choice, and I said, “Well, had I stayed on third surgical, I was working days, and I liked that, it was working out; but you just have to make some choices for your marriage, too.” MF: You do, absolutely. KC: That’s something you have to do it for yourself. So I really left with some really – I just was so sad when I left there. I thought, this has been my whole life, has been St. Benedict’s, for three years. Can I leave them and be happy? But you know, I did. The doctors were wonderful to work for. And as I say, Dr. Nelson died while I was working, but I ended up working there forty years. To begin with I took some time off, because I had two children, but I always worked part-time or something, and then I became the manager. But I was there forty years. So that’s where I started and finished my career, was actually with Dr. Naisbitt, and we’re still very good friends. You probably know his wife; she’s a graduate of the Dee. Actually, we did not know it, but we took state boards together. The Dee merged with us and took state boards, and she and I were talking one day and realized we had taken state boards together. I didn’t remember her then. MF: Right, because she graduated in ’54. Oh, that’s so interesting. KC: Yeah, it was really strange. So anyway. I just kept thinking, I’ll someday go back to the hospital, but I just had such a good job. We moved to three different offices; we went from one to another, but I just loved what I was doing – I never really worked full time for a long time. I managed the office, but I was just there a 23 few days a week, because my husband really wanted me to be home with the girls. So I was able to kind of work my career and my family too, until they were married and such. MF: That’s great. Well, we appreciate you letting us visit with you today. MJ: I was curious about how you celebrated holidays when you were all there together KC: Actually, at Christmastime you generally got to go home. The other holidays you were free to do what you wanted if there was somebody from the outside; like my aunts would have us for Thanksgiving dinner, and they always had my roommate. You were kind of free to go with a family who invited you for dinner. They didn’t have anything particular up there. We would have our little Christmas parties and such, but most of us you had to kind of rotate to go home, because we did staff the hospital. So they didn’t really have anything planned for us; you kind of provided your own type of thing for holidays. But it was nice to be home for Christmas. I can’t remember what they did with staff; I can’t remember when I was a senior if I was still going home for Christmas. I think you got to go home a couple of days, though, so I think they kind of rotated us around so that you did get to go home for part of the holiday. So that was nice, to be able to go home. We did get to go home – see, you worked year round. You didn’t have summers off; you had a two-week vacation in the summer where you could go home or do what you wanted, but we stayed there year-round. It was a three-year, year-round program. It was actually thirty-six months, so we had to stay right there. But I look back on it as one of the greatest experiences of my life. I go 24 back and I think oh, that was the greatest time of my life. The friendships you made, and such. MF: Absolutely. MJ: One other thing I was kind of curious about was, working with the children, were there ever a lot of polio cases? KC: I worked with the polio cases when I was at St. Benedict’s. We didn’t work with those at Children’s. The orthopedic ward was the ward that had the polio, and we had the incubators at that time, and if the electricity was out, you had to hand-pump those respirators. That’s where I was in touch with the polio patients, was in St. Benedict’s in the orthopedic ward. That was a really hard thing too, because some of them would not make it. It was frightening when you had to take them out of the respirator and give them care, then put them back in the respirators. But I remember that very well. Of course, the later years they didn’t have that any more, but we did have the respirators at St. Benedict’s. I don’t remember working with polio at Children’s Hospital. They didn’t have us work in that particular area. I’m sure they had them; I don’t remember, but that was a frightening thing, all those. My kids were asking me about that; we were talking about that the other day. I said, I was in that era, when they still had the polio patients. That was frightening. MF: That would be. I can’t even imagine. KC: It’s just so different. Now, on the other end, being a patient a lot, they work the twelve-hour shifts, and the thing I notice too, is you don’t see the same nurse the next day; you have a totally different nurse because she’s worked her forty hours 25 and she’s not back that day. You’re not in the hospital very long, so you don’t really get to know your nurses very well. Whereas when we did that, you were there every day, and you pretty much saw that patient in and out of there. So it’s totally different now. MF: It is different. KC: I think it’s a real challenge now to be a nurse, and like I say, they have to learn very quickly. So I don’t know whether these diploma programs – I don’t think they’ll ever come back. But ours was a diploma school, and then they had the four-year nursing program I think down in Salt Lake, but they’ve pretty much done away with that kind of program. It’s all, like you say, Weber College or University of Utah and such. A totally different nursing program now. MF: More book-learning. KC: Yes, more book work. MF: Thank you for letting us come visit with you today.