Oral History Program Ruth Brockman Interviewed by Sarah Storey 10 July 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ruth Brockman Interviewed by Sarah Storey 10 July 2019 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii 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. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ 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 This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Brockman, Ruth, an oral history by Sarah Storey, 10 July 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Ruth Brockman (left) & Dauna Seagar (right) Circa 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Ruth Brockman, conducted on July 10, 2019, by Sarah Storey. Ruth discusses her life, her memories, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Reagan Baird, the video technician, is also present during this interview. SS: Today is July 10, 2019 and it is approximately 1:30 pm and we are here with Ruth Brockman. Sarah Storey is interviewing and Raegan Baird is recording for us. So the first question I have for you is when and where were you born? RB: So I was born in 1954 in Regina Saskatchewan, Canada. SS: Wow that’s awesome, what brought you here? RB: Actually Intermountain Healthcare at the time was recruiting nurses, I’m a nurse, and so I thought “That sounds kind of fun,” you know. I like to ski, you know Utah’s got good skiing, so I interviewed and I came down and then I met my husband and the rest is history as they say. SS: Oh I my gosh how fun. So how long have you been here? RB: So I’ve been here since 1977, so a long time. SS: Yeah, that’s awesome. So you don’t regret being here…? RB: Not at all, I like it here. SS: That’s wonderful what a neat story that’s fun. When you were a young girl was there any women that you looked up to or had as a role model? RB: You know, I’m trying to think. Obviously my mother was, you know a really hard worker. We grew up on a farm and she worked really hard and she sold eggs and did a lot of things just to earn some money. So obviously she’s my idol, other 2 role models I’m trying to think, I mean teachers and neighbors, you know that I looked up to, too, but my mother was the best. SS: Sounds like she was a good lady. RB: She was, she was. SS: That’s awesome, I think mothers are really important and a lot of people like pick out role models that are famous, but a lot of times the people closest to you are the ones that have the biggest impact. RB: Exactly, exactly. I admired how hard she worked, she was just an extraordinary woman. SS: That’s very nice. Living on a farm I would imagine it would be very difficult; a lot of work. So this kind of branches off that question. How do you think the role of mothers has changed over the years? RB: There’s more now obviously working outside the home, so the parents share responsibility for the family and keeping the home. But I think also, they’re more likely to get into better roles. It used to be, you know actually when I was growing up you kind of were a teacher, a secretary, or a nurse. And now it’s changed obviously you can do anything. You know as I’ve gone a long, I came to Utah as a nurse and in the emergency room and throughout my career I finished a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree, and was promoted into a lot of different positions. So the opportunities were there for me and I’m very grateful for that. SS: That’s wonderful, that’s nice to hear because it doesn’t always work that way. RB: It doesn’t always work that way. 3 SS: That’s awesome. So when you were a child did your parents encourage you to pursue an education? RB: Yeah they did. They thought it was very important. And you know my parents had a high school education but no college and university degrees, and so they were always wanting me to go on and further education, and get a career. Women can pursue a career and be able to have children as well. SS: So once you got your degree what options, like career options, did that open up for you? RB: Well at first it was staff nursing options. I got to work at all of those specialty areas. But then as I got my bachelor’s degree I had lots of opportunities in leadership, so either as a manager or as a director, or as a care manager, or as an educator, so not all bedside type things although I really enjoyed taking care of patients. SS: Yeah absolutely, and you said that you pursued your master’s degree as well. RB: I earned a MBA rather than a masters in nursing so that I could actually go into management. At the end of my career, which ended in 2011, I was an Operations Officer at McKay Dee. SS: That’s so great, that’s amazing. RB: I was able to lead a lot of departments totally unrelated to nursing like Imaging, facilities and food services. I learned a lot. SS: What a smart idea. While you were continuing your education where there any specific challenges that you faced in general or because you were female? 4 RB: You know as a lot of students both male and female, are working full time and going to school full time. I admire the ones that had children on top of that because I don’t have any kids, but I have a home and a husband and so you know managing all of those responsibilities is a challenge. I was going to night school you know every night. SS: Definitely school is a lot of work, and nursing especially. So what was your first job, like in the very beginning? RB: Oh let’s see, so my very first job, well I was still in high school, I worked in a nursing home. And there was a man that needed a one-on-one care, to make sure he didn’t crawl out of bed, he needed someone to talk to him, to read to him. And so for a year I did that, not full time. I saw what the nurses did and so that actually helped me decide to go into nursing. SS: Teenagers typically don’t fall into those types of jobs, so that’s really admirable. RB: Yeah I did get a CNA after that and I worked in the nursing home for a year prior to going to nursing school. So I got to take care of the other residents as well. SS: Did you enjoy working with the elderly? RB: Loved it. Yeah, loved it. You get very attached to some of them. SS: That’s so sweet. So I guess that kind of answers the question of what was your motivation to go into your chosen field? RB: Yeah, I got to watch what the nurses were doing and realized “Yeah I would like to do that.” SS: When was a time that you were brave at work? A time when you felt like you had to be brave and stand your ground? 5 RB: Interesting, you know in leadership roles there’s a lot of times where you have to be brave and stand your ground. Sometimes there are difficult things, like when you have a patient who pulls a knife on you. I had a social worker come and help me get the knife away from the patient. I had employees that have needed to be terminated because of serious offenses. There was one that I had to say to my assistant “I’m going to leave my door open and if I call for you, you need to get some people to come help me because it could be violent. Sometimes you need to deliver bad news. When you’re in a leadership position money is limited, budgets are limited. And there’s a lot of things that departments would like and they put a really good proposal together and you have to go say, “No you can’t do that this year, you’re going to have to wait till next year and hopefully then we will try again.” SS: I’m sure that’s a difficult thing. RB: Yeah it is. When they do a lot of work and you know that it’s a valid request, but limited resources prevents you from doing it. SS: Yeah, that would be hard. I think it would be hard to be the bearer of bad news. Okay, so this one kind of stems off of that one, so how would you as a woman define courage? RB: I think women and men could define it similarly. It’s being able to be true to yourself, be open, and be able to say “the emperor has no clothes”. You know being able to say, “This is the way it is. That takes some courage sometimes based on who you’re saying it to. 6 SS: So especially in your earlier nursing years, when you were doing patient care did you ever feel that you were not listened to or decimated against because you are a female, or that your opinion didn’t matter as much like when you were having to address doctors or other staff? RB: You know I didn’t ever feel that way. And maybe – maybe in the career that I was in, because there are a lot of women in my career, so I didn’t every feel disrespected that I can remember. I can remember getting in an argument with a physician and he said, “Let’s go down to administration, we need to settle this.” And so I said “Come on, let's go, I’m with you.” And by the time we got there it was all cooled down and the person that was sitting there, listening to us didn’t really say anything, and then we walked out. He was difficult, but I think from that point on he respected me a lot more for saying what I needed to say. SS: That’s great, that’s actually really refreshing. So you kind of touched base on this a little bit that you were obviously going to school and that you have your husband, but has it been difficult to balance home life and your career over the years? RB: Sure, something usually slides a little. And fortunately, my husband was very understanding. But I would work really long hours and come home and we’d have dinner and then I would pull out my laptop and work some more, you know. So it was a sacrifice for him as well. But he was supportive and knew what I was doing. SS: What does the term “women’s work” mean to you? 7 RB: What “women’s work” means to me, you know I don’t fall in the traditional sense that women have a certain “work.” I see women in all sorts of fields, and they contribute. I know a lot of female physicians, attorneys; a lot of leadership roles. I think that at home you share the duties, sometimes you get really good at one thing and he gets good at another thing, so you kind of fall into the “if I prepare dinner, you’ll put the dishes in the dishwasher and clean-up after.” I think you divvy up the jobs and… I don’t sense “women’s work.” SS: So would you be willing to tell us a little bit about the room obviously you were an R.N. and now you’re here at the clinic. Would you mind touching on that? RB: Sure, it’s what I’ve been doing since I retired. So Dauna Seager and Dr. Seager started this clinic 30 plus years ago. Dr. Seager at the time came to three nurses that he knew in the hospital, one of them was me, and said “I want to take you to lunch and talk to you about starting this clinic.” And of course we said, “Of course we will help you,” you know. The Clinic is for the homeless and uninsured and indigent and working poor. We ask if they have insurance, and if they do that they go somewhere else, but we don’t check that. All they have to do is sign in and we will see them and take care of them. I have about 130 volunteer physicians, nurses, mid-levels, dentists, pharmacists and they come volunteer their time and take care of these folks. We give them free medicine, we treat them if they have wounds, and we do refer them obviously if they need to be referred. We care for a lot of diabetic patients, mental health patients, pulmonary, and general things as well, and dental. When I was retiring Dauna Seeger was in her 80’s, Dr. Seager had died and she said “I can’t coordinate this anymore, I just 8 can’t do it,” and she said “It’s really easy, you know you can do it Ruth I know you can.” And I was like “Yeah, I’m sure I can do it but how much time is it going to take, I just retired?” But I said “Okay” and we have grown immensely since that time, 2012. And – and so I coordinate all the volunteers schedule and buy stuff that the clinic needs. I was writing grants up until a year ago and then Dr. Chelsea Slate took over the grant writing piece. We have divvied up some of the responsibilities so it hasn’t been so onerous. We also hired a 6 hour a week person who’s done amazing things, and so she’s helped in terms of organizing the clinic, we get a lot of stuff donated… medical supplies and then she puts them all away, labels things and it’s wonderful. So I love it down here it’s my place and you feel really good. The people that come for services are really grateful. Because they have nowhere else to go and nowhere else to get medicine. SS: What an amazing clinic. RB: Yeah, and I mean things like insulin, I don’t know if you’ve listened to the news lately, but it’s so pricey and people can’t afford it and so they scrimp and don’t use as much as they should or they don’t get it at all, and so we supply them with insulin. And you know they come in with bad infections sometimes we give them antibiotics. A lot of times on the dental side it’s extractions, they come in with extremely decayed teeth. And they just want them out they are in a lot of pain and they can’t be salvaged so they get them pulled, we had a lady here two days ago that just hugged the dentist and thanked him and said, “God bless you,” you know it’s just it’s really rewarding helping these folks. 9 SS: That’s wonderful, so do you get a lot of return patients? Like people in the area? RB: Yup we do, and you know we don’t advertise… I mean we have a website, but it’s all word of mouth. People know we’re here, they know when we’re open and they come sign in and then we see them. SS: That’s really cool, I love it. So do you just serve Ogden or is it all of Weber County? RB: Yeah Northern Utah and people traveling through you know. If they come to stay at the shelter here they’ll come to the clinic. SS: That’s amazing. RB: Yeah it is amazing. SS: So are you here every day? RB: No, unfortunately I’m not, but I come down and fill out the calendar and do a few things. And I fill in sometimes for the nurse or the receptionist. If I can’t get a sub. SS: What an amazing thing that is such a cool thing to be a part of. RB: I know, I know it’s really great. SS: And it just suits you too. It looks like it brings you joy. RB: Yeah I love it! And there’s – and there’s such wonderful people. We’ve got lots of pictures up there that’s the people that volunteer, and so we help a lot of people. People like that are like getting out of jail, they get 7 days of medicine and then if they don’t have any money… so they come here we can give them more medicine. RB: It helps them so they don’t end up back in jail cause then they, you know can keep their mental health under control. Yeah, it’s – it’s an amazing amount of 10 folks. And now there is a clinic at the Lantern House, there is a Hope clinic. They get some government funding so they can only see homeless people, we don’t get any government funding so we take all comers that say they don’t have insurance. SS: So you said that the Seager’s founded the clinic, did they set up a trust to keep the clinic going? RB: No, we get donations, private donations, and grants from foundations. SS: Wow that’s impressive. That is hard to do. RB: It is, it is but people are so generous, you know and there’s foundations that really want to help this population and know about us. It’s pretty cool. When the Sisters of St. Benedicts left Ogden a number of years ago they had about 15 charities that they left money to and we were one of them. Sister Stephanie was on our board and so that kind of kick started having enough money that we could have a cushion. Someday it would be nice if we could live off our interest, like an endowment, but we’re not there yet. But we have enough and we’re very frugal. Our budget for this year is $45,000 and most of that is for medicine that we buy for our patients. A lot of the medical supplies are donated. The Ogden Clinic is really generous with us and they’ll buy stuff, they’ll send it out to the clinics and they clinics will say “No this isn’t what I ordered,” and rather than send it back, because it costs a lot to send it back, they donate it to us and we can use it, it’s wonderful. SS: So since you guys have to purchase all the medicine do you get like a discount or something? 11 RB: We do, we do and then we also get some free medicine from a company back east that gives it to free clinics. They send us a list every week of what they have on hand and we pick the ones we can use. They do that to a number of free clinics in the country. So we get sent some medicine from there. We also get some patients on medication assistance and that’s been wonderful. This is a great place, this is a really good place. SS: Yeah and I can see that it really brings you joy. RB: Yeah it does. SS: The final question is how did women receiving the right to vote shape or influence history, the community and yourself? RB: I’ve watched some of the suffrage videos, and obviously it’s a huge, huge important thing for women to receive. You know to have that equal status in terms of voting, and you know there’s so many more steps that have come after that in terms of women being able to get into important roles and to make a difference. But it was… I think it was one of the initial steps that had to occur before and there’s still a ways to go, you know. RB: I chose a field where women have a lot of leadership positions but there are still a lot of companies, industries that don’t have women in leadership roles. And so I was fortunate, I never felt that I was discriminated against or that I was treated differently than my male counter parts that I worked with. You know, so I was very fortunate. SS: So this is going to sound kind of naïve of me, but in Canada do women have the right to vote? 12 RB: Yes, oh yes. SS: Okay, so did you participate when you were there? RB: Yes, absolutely yeah. Yeah, at 18 we were allowed to vote so before I came down here I voted. SS: Women need to have a voice as well. I think we see the community differently than men do sometimes. RB: Yeah SS: And it makes a difference, so yeah. Like you say we still have a way to go unfortunately but we are getting there a little bit at a time, it is so refreshing to know that you had such a good experience and that you’ve, you were able to come here and that’s the American dream is to come here and to flourish and to have a great life. RB: Right, great career and to be able to do this. SS: It’s been wonderful. Is there anything you’d like to add or any advice for other women? Or just anything that you are passionate about that we missed? RB: You know I love to help women and men achieve their goals. We get a lot of students that come here and they are going to medical school or PA school, and I love having them here. It’s a great experience for them to see the clientele that we see and to be able to… it really grounds them I think in terms of, and to be able to care for them and touch them and you know help them. And I don’t know of a student that hasn’t enjoyed that experience. And so from my perspective, you know writing letters for them and helping them get into medical school or achieve their dreams it’s great. And then I tell them if I do it they have to stay in 13 touch and let me know how things go. And then if they come back in the area they have to come volunteer again. SS: I think that’s a great… I think that’s a great point I think it gives you that sense of human connection. RB: Yeah people that are down on their luck or… the stories are amazing of the individuals that come here. So it’s a great experience for students that are going on. Yeah, and especially at this time of year the last two months is the letter writing months because they are all applying for school. So… and you know I wish them well. SS: Yeah, that’s wonderful. Well you’re such a wonderful lady I appreciate you meeting with us, you’re amazing. RB: Well thank you! SS: And you’re obviously a huge asset here so…well we appreciate your time.