Oral History Program Arlene Wilson Saunders Interviewed by Marci Farr 21 October 2008 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Arlene Wilson Saunders Interviewed by Marci Farr 21 October 2008 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 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: Arlene Wilson Saunders, an oral history by Marci Farr, 21 October 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Arlene Wilson Saunders Application Photo June 22, 1951 Graduation Photo Class of 1954 Arlene Wilson Saunders October 21, 2008 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Arlene Wilson Saunders. It was conducted October 21, 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 Arlene Wilson Saunders in her home in Ogden, Utah. It is October 21, 2008 and she graduated from the Dee School of Nursing in 1954. Could you just tell us a little about your early life? Where you were born and raised and about your family and where you went to school? AS: I was born and reared in Price, Utah and I have two older brothers. My parents were very hard workers and they had little education. My father could not read or write but very little but he was a good mechanic and he got work in the coal mines working on the mining equipment. My mother could read and write very well but jobs were hard to come by so she worked hard late at night cleaning office buildings etc. She would often take me with her and she taught me how to clean and work. During one of the shifts at work, my father was severely injured by a runaway coal car and his co-worker was killed. Dad slowly recovered and then retired from mining shortly after. He always kept busy, as did my mother, and they always had a beautiful yard and garden. They both lived good long lives. My dad died at the age of 93 and my mother at the age of 96. My oldest brother still lives in the Price area and even though he is in his 80's he still runs a farm with several head of cattle. He also has a very large garden in which they raise all the vegetables needed for year round use. My second brother lives in Nampa, Idaho where he is retired from his own business. 1 MF: You attended school in Price? AS: Yes, I attended all twelve years of elementary school in Price and really had a wonderful time in school. I graduated from Carbon High School. After graduation I started working in the telephone office in Price where I worked for about two years. While still in high school I did baby sitting and also helped people in our neighborhoods to help earn some money. While growing up I never went to church and no one in my family did. We always worked in the yard and did other things on Sunday. It wasn't until I left home that I started going to church at the encouragement of some of my classmates. That's when one of my friend's said “It's time you went to church.” I replied, “I don't know if it is or not,” but anyhow, they took me to church. After two times, I was very glad they did because there was this cute young man there leading the singing and he was attracted to me at once. I was two years older than him and I thought he was too young but he was cute. Here came along this young man named Darrell Saunders and his sister said, " Please go out with him. He has been watching you for a month." After I went out with him twice I asked him if he knew how old I was. He replied "Yes, you are two years older than I am and that is perfectly fine." We started dating and things just clicked. After we had dated for several months, Darrell went into the service so we began corresponding through letters. The reason I came to Ogden to go into nursing was because a friend of mine was coming and she asked me to join her. When she asked me to come my response was "Not me, I can't stand the sight of blood and I don't want to be a nurse." So what did she do? She sent me all the papers and applications and had everything all signed and acted like I had signed all this. Bless her little heart. Her name was Carol Waterman. She wanted me to come to Ogden and she kept after me until I finally said ok. I was fortunate to get accepted into the program. One of my brothers drove me up to Ogden when it was time to begin my training and I quickly fell in love with all of the girls in my class. I mean we just clicked together and had the nicest class and all got along so well together. It was wonderful to have all the wonderful friends that we had in nursing. We were really just like sisters. We were a busy group and we liked to pull little pranks on one another. MF: Weren't you the wild class? AS: Yes. I didn't want to say that but the house mother sort of implied that fact and she had been there for many years. She said she really enjoyed our class because we never sat still and we were always doing fun things, even if they were sometimes a little devious. We also had a lot of fun at a little pharmacy just across the street from the nurse's home. They had a soda fountain and we would hang out there sometimes and have ice cream. MF: That's great. We heard about your wild class. AS: We had so many great times together. At times we would go to the roof of the nurse's home and sun bathe. We also went swimming a lot. We went to dances on occasion with fellows who were stationed here in the service and we had good times at these dances. One time, now I hope no one reported this, but anyway, this one young man went out with one of our best friends. She was in 3 our class. She was wonderful and beautiful. This young man did not treat her nice. He was rude to her, stood her up and called her names. We didn't appreciate that, so one day my friend LuAnn and I and a couple others stood at an open window upstairs. We had a little bucket of water that we didn't know what to do with so we kind of cooled him off. He was much nicer after that. In fact, they ended up getting married. MF: Was this your first time away from home? AS: Yes, it was. MF: What were your first impressions? AS: It was hard at first because I didn't know anyone. You wouldn't believe it but I was a little timid. I just didn't quite know how to associate with all these new people. There was a girl who was supposed to come up from Price with me, but at the last minute she decided not to go into nursing. After just a few days though our class just bonded. One of the girls, Pat, played the piano for us and we all sang and goofed around. We just had a wonderful time together. We would go out and go for walks, go swimming and we played ball together. Our friend LuAnn and her husband to be always came and brought some others to play ball and so I learned to play ball. I had never really played ball. Some of them just lived it. It was just their life, but I had never played much ball except with my brothers a little bit. We just loved doing that and other sports together. MF: We love when we hear the stories of how you were able to get together and rely on each other; when you were taking tests or whatever, just to get through the day sometimes. I think just to have them there and just have a little relief from the pressure, because it was kind of stressful. AS: That's right. MF: To go in there and have to know all of those things. I can imagine that would be a really hard thing. So what were some of your rules you had to follow while you were in training? AS: We had to be in at a certain hour and not be out late. The housemother said if we did not get in on time then she would lock us out, but she never did. We usually all tried to get in on time. We really did, because that was how it should be and so we always did. Once in a while we would be late coming in from a date but we knew of another door that we could sneak in. But that didn't happen very often. We were pretty good at keeping the rules. MF: Who was your roommate that you roomed with? AS: It was Beth Danielson and her name is Beth Danielson Wilson now. She married my brother. In fact, Beth and I were the only ones in our class that stayed as roommates the whole time. She just came to live with me and we lived the rest of the time together. Then she saw my brother's picture. I have two brothers and she picked my brother Glen, and that is who she married. MF: Where was she from? AS: She was from Smithfield. MF: What were some of your favorite classes that you had to take while at Weber College? 5 AS: I really liked all my classes but the ones I enjoyed the most were those where we learned the anatomy of the body, like the skeletal system, etc. Also the classes that were more on the medical field were very interesting. It was my first exposure to these special courses and I just absorbed this new information. One of our teachers scared us to death however. He was a good teacher but he would just call us up to the board to write our answers but because of this we learned to be prepared. We had fun learning from each teacher and they became like family to us. They truly wanted us to learn. Just before our first Christmas in nursing school we took our tests. When we returned back after Christmas we found that four in our class had not passed and that included the only male student in our class. It was very hard to see them leave because we had developed such a closeness with each other. MF: After you graduated did you stay at the Dee Hospital? AS: No. I went to Georgia to be with my husband who was in the military. I became pregnant while in Georgia and I would go to the Fort Benning Hospital for check ups. Every time I went for a check up a different doctor would be on duty. Some of them I didn't feel as comfortable with and some of them were okay. When it came time for my delivery I had never seen the doctor on duty before. When the doctor examined me, he said "she is ready" and in fifteen minutes my first child was born. He didn't have time to give me anything for pain so he just started talking to me and I found out that he had interned at the Dee Hospital and knew all of the doctors and many of the nurses that I knew. It relaxed me because I felt I was in good hands. When I came home from Georgia, I worked again part time at the Dee Hospital while my husband finished his pre-dental classes at Weber College. In 1957 we moved back to Lincoln, Nebraska where my husband began dental school. Because I had my RN degree I was able to find a job at one of the large hospitals in Lincoln and worked weekends to help support my husband through school. We had two children at this time and my husband was home with them when I was at work. After dental school we moved back to Ogden and I started working at the Dee Hospital part time. By this time we had four children. It is interesting how nursing becomes such an influence in your life. I ended up as a patient in the hospital. I was down in the recovery room where there were a couple of other patients recovering from their surgery. I was still pretty out of it when one of the other patients started to yell – “Nurse Nurse.” Even though I was still groggy I responded, "I'm coming." My husband and father-in-law were in the room with me and they both really got a chuckle out of my response. I had an opportunity to work at the School for the Deaf and Blind. It was such a special experience to work with those wonderful students. You see these students with the challenges they have in their lives and it makes you thankful for the opportunities we have and it causes you to work harder to accomplish what they accomplish. These students gave us much love and it was very rewarding working with them. That was one of the most special times of my life, working with those people because they taught me how to love me as myself and to try harder to be the best I could and to be thankful for what I have. LuAnn and I also helped in working with the Red Cross for a couple of years. We had 7 fun working together teaching some health classes. We also helped with vaccinations etc. MF: How do you think your training at the hospital served you? AS: I don't know what I would have done without my training. It gave me a confidence in myself that I could help others around me and that I could help my children. Maybe I didn't always know what to do, but what not to do. Sometimes children think they know what is good for them and it helped me be able to tell them why something was not good for them. There were things like that I think every mother needs, to be home and know what to give or do for their children and what not to give them. I was able to teach them about taking care of their bodies and what not to put in their bodies so I never had a problem with any of my kids doing anything like that. It worked out really well and we were able to be quite healthy. MF: When we have talked to other nurses, you never had a problem getting a job if you had to support your family. AS: Nurses were in need then, just like they are now days. One of my favorite assignments was working at the State Mental Hospital. What I really learned there was that you try hard to understand and love these patients then they will show that love back to you. They can sense if you are comfortable around them or if you are not. If you are then you could help them a lot. My roommate had a hard time working there because she was so uncomfortable around those people and they felt it and didn't like her very much. I also spent some time at the State Tuberculosis Hospital. I learned a lot there about that disease and I learned to respect the patients because of their positive outlook. MF: What was your favorite floor that you worked on? AS: I liked surgical because patients usually recovered, most of them, not all of them. Most of them you could see they were happy now and everything was going to be okay. I liked that floor better. I also enjoyed being with the babies working up in the nursery. MF: After you graduated and you were at the Dee, did you just go wherever they needed you as far as working on the floors? AS: Yes, I worked on the floors for quite awhile. They wanted me to go on medical, but then they had room on surgical so I went back on surgical. I should have gone on medical to get more experience, but when they gave me my choice I went back to surgical. Medical is a good floor, I learned a lot on medical too. I just liked happy things and sometimes on medical they didn't always come out happy. I knew that. You learn that first. It's not always going to be something you can deal with. They let us work both floors and I was glad I got experience on that floor too. If I had to work extra I would always pick surgical because I knew people usually got better on that floor. Many times we lost patients and you would get so attached to them. They become your friends. They become part of your life. It was so hard to see them suffer, especially with cancer. The only thing I didn't like about nursing was to witness suffering and death. You would get so attached to some patients and when they would go it was like losing a member of your family. As nurses we did all that we could to help alleviate as 9 much pain and suffering as we could by our skills but mostly by our caring and compassion. Nursing has changed a lot over the years but that part should never change. I feel our class was very good at giving loving tender care. We were a great class. We just loved each other even though we pulled naughty little pranks on each other. We always had lots of laughs and giggles. We were known to be the giggliest class that went through the Dee. MF: Arlene thank you for letting us come and share your stories with us.