Oral History Program Janet Bate Ramsey and Patricia Spaulding Thrasher Interviewed by Marci Farr 1 October 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Janet Bate Ramsey and Patricia Spaulding Thrasher Interviewed by Marci Farr 1 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. Benedict’s 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: Janet Bate Ramsey and Patricia Spaulding Thrasher, an oral history by Marci Farr, 1 October 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Janet Bate Ramsey Graduation Photo Class of 1959 Janet Bate Ramsey October 1, 2010 Patricia Spaulding Thrasher Graduation Photo Class of 1959 Patricia Spaulding Thrasher October 1, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Janet Bate Ramsey and Patricia Spaulding Thrasher, conducted by Marci Farr and Sarah Langsdon, on October 1, 2010. In this interview, Janet and Patricia discuss their recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing Janet Ramsey and Patricia Thrasher. They both graduated from St. Benedict’s School of Nursing in 1959. It is October 1, 2010, and we are interviewing them in Seattle, Washington. We’ll just ask questions, and if you both want to respond, however you want to do it is fine. Tell us a little about where you grew up, your family life, brothers and sisters, and also where you attended school. JR: Well, I grew up in Shoshone, Idaho. In the family there was my grandmother who lived with us, and my mother, and I had three brothers. Two of them were away in the Second World War, so there was my brother who’s just five years older than myself, and I did first grade through high school there. Then I left to go to nursing school. MF: What about you, Pat? PT: I was born in Ely, Nevada. My parents were divorced when I was two, and my grandparents lived in Ogden. Off and on all of my life they raised me, but I lived in Boise – I went to Catholic boarding school in Boise – I lived in Walla Walla – I graduated from high school in Ogden. MF: Why did you decide to become nurses? Was there any certain reason? 2 JR: Well, growing up, there wasn’t a lot of choices in those days for women. You could be a schoolteacher, a secretary, a nurse, or get married. When I was a junior in high school – I decided that nursing might be the field that I’d like to do. So my friend Shannon, and I went off to nursing school together – but we worked for a summer at St. Benedict’s Hospital in Jerome, Idaho, and met one of the nurses there, Sister Virginia. Actually, we didn’t do a whole lot of nursing, but you kind of saw what was going on. We did more cleanup as aides, and we did get to feed patients. It was a good experience. Also, the priest that was in Shoshone at the time was very encouraging. MF: So that kind of made that decision? JR: It did help a lot. MF: What about you, Pat? PT: I was hospitalized at St. Benedict’s when I was thirteen, with pneumonia, for three weeks. So that was my earliest vision of what I thought of nursing. Then, when I was sixteen, I was in California for a summer, and involved with a family where a young man had been paralyzed from the neck down in a swimming accident. The nurses who took care of him at Children’s had come to visit him, and it was very impressive. MF: And that made your decision. That’s good. Did you take any classes in high school or do anything like that to help you along the way? JR: Once I decided that I was going to go into nursing, I took all the science classes that were offered, which weren’t a whole lot, because it was a small high school, but we were really fortunate. We had an excellent chemistry teacher, and I’m 3 sure that’s what got me through chemistry, to this day. I’ve thanked him many a times. MF: That’s a good thing. So was this both your first time away from home? JR: Yes. MF: How was that, when you first entered nurses’ training? JR: It was terrible. MF: Were you scared? JR: Well, being scared, and I was with my best friend. We both went. We grew up across the street from each other, and we had each other, but we were both so homesick… I can remember sitting out on the back lawn after our parents left us, and we were both crying our eyes out. It was like it was the end of the world. MF: The end of the world had come. That would be hard. How about you, was that hard for you? PT: Well, it was my hometown, but – and I do want to say – Mr. Wiley, who taught physiology, was wonderful. Chemistry I didn’t do so well. Mary Lou and I knew each other, and wanted to room together, and the sisters wanted to put Ogden girls with girls from out of town because girls came from all over, Idaho and Wyoming and so on. Mary Lou’s mother, God love her, went up and said to the nuns, you have to consider Pat from out of state, because her parents – even though she was raised in Ogden – live out of state. I tell you, I wrote to her every Christmas all of her life to say “thank you”. 4 MF: That is a great thing, that she intervened. That’s good. So when you first entered training, you had classes that you had to take, with your nursing. Tell us about your schedule, about your typical day. JR: As I remember, the day started pretty early. Can’t remember just exactly what time. We had to be to chapel first. Then to breakfast, then our classes would start. MF: You had those at the hospital, right? You weren’t affiliated at all with Weber at that time? JR: No. In fact, a lot of them were in the basement of the nursing home, is where our classrooms were. MF: That’s good. That was probably a new kind of thing to get used to, all the different regimens and strictness. JR: Very much so, and having, also, different – getting to know the nuns that were teaching the classes, too. MF: That’s true. Who was your roommate when you were in training? Was Shannon your roommate? JR: Yes. MR: And you and Mary Lou, right, were roommates? PT: Yes. MF: Okay. Next question – do you have any funny stories that involved your roommates or your classmates? 5 JR: I just think we had lots of fun. You know, you didn’t have a lot of time, but I remember in the evening we’d congregate in each other’s rooms until it was time to go to the library to study. You know, just getting to know each other. MF: Right, because you were going to be relying on each other for three years, and that was probably a nice thing to be able to have. JR: I remember they had to go down to the lounge if they were going to smoke; you couldn’t smoke in your rooms. So people would congregate down there, the ones that smoked. PT: I have memories of closing the closet doors, and opening the windows. We smoked in our room. Maybe not the first year, but – and we didn’t smoke the first year, we couldn’t smoke. JR: But they did. MF: Tell us about curfew, a few of the rules, a few of the things that you had to follow. JR: It was strict. You had to sign in and out, and where you were going. I think the first three months was especially; you had to really keep hours. MF: So did you have your capping – was that six months, or was it three months? Because we’ve heard both. PT: You just read the date, and it was March. JR: Yes, ours was March. PT: We started September, so it was six months. MF: Okay, that’s good. What would you do if you had a night off, or if you had a few hours? Would you go downtown, or do something with your friends? 6 JR: We’d go down to Judy’s, which was down the hill, if we had money, to have ice cream or hamburgers. I can remember, occasionally, taking the bus and going downtown. That was something new too; coming from a small town, we didn’t have buses. A lot of the kids that lived there, they’d invite you to their homes, which was really nice. Mary Lou’s folks – we went to hers several times, and Pat’s grandmother and grandfather would have us over. MF: That was probably nice and helped with the homesickness. JR: It did. We were real fortunate, because Shannon had a cousin that lived in Ogden, and she and her husband were really good to us. MF: That’s good. So that probably helped, that probably made it nice. Tell us about the sisters. Was this the first time that you’d come in contact with the sisters, or – did you know anybody that was a nun at that time? JR: I knew lots of women that were nuns, but none of the nuns that were at St. Benedict’s. I’d never met them ‘til we got there. MF: So they didn’t come up and visit, as far as the different places? JR: No. We went down in the summer and took a test – what was it, the Minnesota Personality Test? MF: To see if they would accept you, as far as your personality? JR: To decide if you would be accepted into the nursing program. MF: Did Shannon go with you? JR: We both went down, yes. MF: That’s good. What did you think, when you first got there, and your instructors? Was that hard to get used to? 7 JR: I think it was hard to get used to. Classes were hard, and it was different – it was very different. MF: I’ve heard that. So as far as strictness; they were strict, but at the same time, were you able to socialize with them? JR: They had good times. I can remember they’d have a Halloween party, and they dressed up; you’d see the nuns out playing tennis. They’d put rubber bands on their veil, and you could see that they had a good time. We had toboggan parties. MF: It was probably nice to see them in that aspect, instead of just in their habit. Nice to know they were human. Who are the sisters that you remember when you were there? JR: Sister Estelle, Sister Rebecca, Sister Mary Gerald. PT: Sister Davidann, Sister Boniface. MF: Is she the one that had the coke-bottle glasses? PT: Yes. MF: Making sure I’m keeping them straight. That’s good. Who taught which class? Do you have specific memories? JR: Miss Barker. MF: We just interviewed her. PT: Oh, you did? JR: She was excellent. Let’s see – at the time, she wasn’t married. Was it Miss Keller that taught us basic nursing? They were all really good instructors. PT: Sister Boniface taught us nutrition, and every test she asked us, who wrote your nutrition book? And it was Proudfoot and Robinson; I can tell you. 8 MF: Don’t forget! PT: Sister Estelle taught us microbiology. JR: Sister Rebecca taught us pharmacology. You want before capping? MF: Yes, absolutely, whatever you want to share with us is fine. JR: Dr. Swindler for orthopedics. He was very strict - I was scared to death of him. I think I could still draw a knee, if I had to. MF: Did you have guest lecturers, people that would come to the school and lecture for you guys? JR: I don’t remember that. PT: Do you know something that I really remember, because he taught us sociology and he was in a wheelchair? JR: Oh yes, Mr. Farmer. PT: Yes, and I have this memory of the obstetricians teaching us, but was that our senior year, or did they guest lecture all the way through? JR: That was later, not early on. Then we had a priest that taught us medical ethics. I think he came from Logan. MF: That’s good. It was probably interesting to have that diversity. When you were on your rotations, what was your favorite floor? What did you enjoy the most in the hospital? JR: Well, I liked medical, and I liked the operating room – for a long time, I wanted to be an operating room nurse. That changed, I don’t know exactly why, but it did. I didn’t like OB, because whenever you’d see a pregnant woman, you’d think, I’m going to lose sleep, because I’m going to be on call. 9 MF: Be waiting. JR: I loved kids, but I did not like pediatrics. I was scared, always, that something was going to happen, and something did one time, and that was really scary. MF: That would be a hard thing. Did you have rotations outside of Utah? Did you have Denver, Children’s Hospital? Tell us a little about that – when did you do your rotation to Denver? JR: Well, Pat and I weren’t on the same rotation. PT: We were there in the wintertime, and it was a phenomenal experience as an education. You know, the women who wrote our pediatric book taught us. I can remember being told, “Babies should be held when they’re fed, and at Children’s Hospital, they will be held when they’re fed.” We were there with women from other schools of nursing. We were the only school of nursing who had already experienced nights. And I remember that it was very frightening for some of the other girls. It was just a grand experience, I think. MF: Was that during your junior year that you did that, or was it later? JR: It was junior year. MF: It was probably interesting to have that different – outside of the hospital, and have it focused on the children. Did that make a difference as far as your understanding of things that happened? PT: I think very much. I mean, you had school. At home, you could be studying obstetrics, and you could be on the medical floor; or you could be studying… it was not always coordinated. Whereas at Children’s and at psych, you were studying, and that was your focus. 10 MF: Was that your only rotation, or did you go to Hastings? JR: We went to Hastings too. MF: Tell us about that. That was your psychiatric? JR: That was. That was a new experience. Very different, because it was very large. You know, as young students, you go into a big psych hospital like that, and I can remember a funny story. When we were assigned a patient; we were on a ward, and there were - and I can’t remember – it wasn’t a locked ward, because you could take the patients into town on a bus. Not right away, but I remember when we first were assigned there, the instructor told us to go and meet a patient, and then interview them, and write it up. So I saw this little man who looked like he’d be cooperative, and I went over and sat down by him and introduced myself. We started to talk, and he said, “How would you like to kiss my butt?” I’ll never forget it, because I didn’t know what to say. It scared me to death. MF: That would be crazy. Those were the only two you had, right? The only two rotations out of state, those two. JR: We had Tuberculosis, but that was in Ogden. We didn’t stay out there. MF: So did you go there every single day, to go to the Sanitorium? PT: Yes. MF: Okay, that’s good to know. JR: I think that one closed after our class. MF: Okay. JR: I think I heard it did. SL: I want to know what Pat’s favorite rotation was. 11 PT: I’m not sure. I can remember being terrified a lot. At Children’s – I’m not sure that I had a favorite. It’s of interest to me that when we took our boards, my highest scores were peds and psych; they were those two away. And our lowest score, our entire class, was obstetrics. Maybe that’s because – my memory is, we were taught by an upperclassman who read the book to us. At that point, we were working nights and evenings, and sleep-deprived. We took a test the end of our senior year, preceding boards, and I failed, and our entire class flunked obstetrics. So that last summer, we had a brush-up. That’s maybe when I really remember the obstetricians coming and – I’m not answering your question – but I do have to tell you that it was my lowest score on boards, and I did obstetrics the rest of my life. So now, that is – but I don’t remember when we were in school that it was something that I really loved. So many funny stories and so many experiences, and I’m flashing back to being on orthopedics with Vi, and one of the things that we did in the evening was prepare the patients for surgery. That was shaving, and Vi and I shaved a man’s legs and cut him in several places. Our supervisor insisted we write an incident report, and I can remember shaking when Dr. Swindler came that evening, and he said, “I understand that you girls did the surgery before me.” MF: Just trying to help out. PT: That’s right. Stories about trying to stay awake at night. Putting ice down your back. Going to class – my memory is, you went to the ward seven to ten, you went to class ten to two, you went back to the wards from three to seven. An uncle of mine said to me, “You have no idea how difficult this is going to be.” And 12 I remember how long I’d been there and I said to him, “You have no idea how difficult this is.” MF: That would be, if you weren’t used to it, and the long hours and then the stress of worrying about studying and schedules and if the patients were okay. That’s a big responsibility, because you basically ran the hospital. PT: That’s right. JR: It was a very big responsibility. PT: The wonderful thing about Hastings, is that we didn’t have to work evenings or nights. When you talked about, what did we do for fun – in Ogden, my memory is, we went to Judy’s. Otherwise, we were there. MF: You were at the hospital. PT: But in Hastings, we had more freedom. We didn’t work weekends; so it was kind of carefree. JR: When we got to be juniors and seniors, we got to have more free time. PT: We did, but I still don’t remember doing anything fun. JR: Well, remember we all went to see Elvis? The movie, the first movie that came out? PT: I remember going up to Evanston and having a good time. That is one. SL: Did you ever have dances or any interaction with the servicemen from Hill? JR: Oh, yes – we went out to the Base. I think that was the junior and senior year. PT: I missed it, totally. I don’t remember ever going to Base. Have I forgotten? Was I there? JR: I thought you were. 13 SL: I have a question about curfew. How did you get around the signing in and signing out if you wanted to break curfew? JR: Well, let’s see. When we first were there, we had to sign out in the nursing home. I think that was before we were capped. Then, later, you signed out at the hospital, with the night operator. It depended which night operator was working. MF: So you’d plan your night accordingly. JR: There were some that were a little bit more lenient than the others. I can remember signing in and then sneaking back out. MF: That’s what we’ve heard a lot of. PT: I have this memory of trying to sneak underneath. JR: We did. That’s when it depended – you’d try to check who was going to be on duty. PT: They were in – like a cubicle. If they were distracted, then you could sneak by. MF: Get to the elevator. JR: Yes. Sometimes you got caught in the tunnel by one of the nuns coming through, and had to hide. MF: What kind of punishments did they give? JR: I don’t remember ever getting punished. I didn’t do it very often. PT: Yeah, and I don’t remember stories of anybody. Of course, we were so terrified – it sounds like there was some discipline. MF: Tell us about capping ceremony. Where did that take place? JR: Took place in the nursing quarters. 14 PT: I thought it was the chapel. Was it the nursing quarters? Weren’t we in the chapel? JR: It was – it was in the main lounge. PT: Oh, okay. The dining room. JR: It was exciting, because we got our capes too, which I still have mine. MF: They’re so beautiful. JR: It doesn’t say where. PT: I guess the chapel wasn’t big enough, because our families were there, so it would have had to be a larger room. MF: So you received your cap and your cape at the same time, for the capping ceremony. So you felt like you would be able to make it, if you made it to your capping ceremony? JR: I think by then, yes. MF: They probably knew you’d be able to stick it out? JR: Yes. PT: One thing to mention, and maybe I’m wrong, but I think the reason they gave us the multiple personality test is because each year they lost a third of the girls that were coming. So that wasn’t the only test, we also took some kind of an entrance exam. And my gosh, there were over a hundred women there. MF: That had applied? Really? Wow. So is that all you had to do for your assessments, is take the test? JR: And write a letter. PT: And an interview. 15 MF: An interview with Sister Berno? And a letter, okay, so like a recommendation? JR: Yes. PT: I remember saying in this letter that I wanted to serve God and my fellow man at the same time. But you know, I think it was a sorrow for the nuns, when you ask about – because we still lost girls. We ended up with twenty-three, and we think we started with thirty-five, or in the thirties. MF: So that’s quite a drop. But I think it’s better to find out than get all the way through it and go, okay, that’s three years of your life. SL: How many of that was from girls who got married? Were there quite a few of your class that got married? JR: No – I remember one that went with us, that started with us; she quit very shortly after. I don’t think she had any idea what nursing was going to be like. She was very smart, it wasn’t that she couldn’t do the classes, it was just that she couldn’t do it. MF: Tell us what your greatest challenge was while you were in nurses’ training. PT: You know, Janet and I talked about this together. I’ll bet everyone has given you the prayer we said in chapel every morning. JR: The nurses’ prayer. SL: No, we haven’t heard it. PT: No one’s talked about that? Okay. JR: It was that you would do no harm to anybody. Here it is: PT: O my God, I am about to begin the day’s work. Teach me to receive the sick in Thy name. Give to mine efforts success, sweet Jesus, for the glory of thy holy 16 name. It is thy work. Without thee I cannot succeed. Grant that the sick thou hast placed in my care may be abundantly blessed, and not one of them lost because of anything that is lacking in me. That challenge was there was there, and was there through all of my nursing career. I said this prayer every morning; I say it now, and change the “sick” into “may everyone I meet be blessed and no one injured because of anything lacking in me…” The nursing prayer was that no patient suffered or died. JR: That you would harm somebody. MF: That’s good; you would have to have something to carry you through; you know you’re human, but doing your very best. That would probably be hard, just to be sure you were on top of everything. That would be a challenge. Tell us about graduation – when did that take place, and where? JR: It took place in August, at the cathedral. PT: St. Joseph’s. MF: Did you walk down from the hospital, or did they drive you down? PT: There’s no way to walk, was there? JR: Your family – we didn’t walk, it was too far. MF: Probably just drove you down there. So tell us about that, when you walked in. How was that ceremony? JR: It was a lifetime goal. It was very, very special; we had made it. I shouldn’t say we’d made it, because then we knew we had to take the nurse exam. But you’d made the one big hurdle; it was really a lifetime goal. 17 MF: Absolutely. So what was the thing you remember most about that ceremony? JR: Walking down the aisle, and they gave us roses. PT: And Janet was given the “Nurse of our class” from the nuns – the honor – what’s the name of it, Janet? JR: The Bishop Hunt award. MF: That’s a great honor – very nice. JR: Forgot about that. I mean, didn’t forget about it… I mean, I think the biggest thrill was just to know that we had made it to that point. MF: After your blood, sweat, and tears. That’s good. So what did you do after graduation? Did you stay at St. Benedict’s? What did you do with your career? JR: My friend Shannon and I stayed there and worked at the hospital until the following May when we’d taken boards. Then we left to come to Seattle. MF: So you’ve been here ever since? JR: We were going to stay since months, then go to San Francisco. We didn’t make it. MF: That’s good. What did you do, Pat? PT: I went to Denver and worked at Children’s, and I was one of those graduates that was married and pregnant, and I cried after graduation, that the nuns had let me graduate, knowing that – because it was not allowed. It was such a relief. MF: So then did you come up here? When did you get to Seattle? PT: I was in Denver for a year, then I was in Los Angeles for seven years at a hospital named St. Francis; then I came here in ’66 and worked at the University of Washington. 18 MF: Good. So were you a teacher? PT: Oh, no; sorry, I was in OB/GYN, so I worked labor and delivery, and newborn nursery, and then I was fortunate enough to have a position in the clinic, which meant I was Monday through Friday. Wonderful place to work. MF: Oh, good. What did you do, Janet? JR: Shannon and I interviewed together at the VA Hospital – we talk about this often, because the chief nurse, Miss DaBorra; she interviewed us at the same time. Her closing remark was, “What makes you think you’re good enough to work here?” MF: Oh, wow. JR: Neither one of us can remember what we said, but she said to us, “Right now we’ll keep you in mind, but there’s no openings.” So we were staying downtown, and we were going to have an interview at Swedish the next day. We’d made interviews for different places. She called us the next morning and said, “I have two positions.” So we didn’t even go to Swedish. We thought, we’ve got a job, that’s all that matters. It was – VA is a teaching hospital with the University, and we learned a lot. I think because we’d had the responsibility at St. Benedict’s, you know – MF: Running the hospital. JR: Well, we didn’t run the VA. MF: As far as St. Benedict’s, and your knowledge. JR: Doing the nursing work, and it was hard work, but we learned a lot. We were there for six months, and she called us back down and wanted to know if there were any from our class who would like to come and work there. 19 MF: Oh, good. JR: So I thought that spoke well of St. Benedict’s and the training we had. MF: Absolutely. Exactly. We had one lady tell us that she had a girl that graduated with her Bachelor’s and was on the floor, and she didn’t even know how to do blood pressure or anything, and here she is, a diploma graduate, but she had to show this girl, because she had the knowledge but didn’t have the clinical. JR: We had all the clinical. You know, even after I went back to work later, when we would get nurses from some of the places, you know, they graduated – one of the RNs, you’d take that person with you, and it was like to help them with clinical, because they hadn’t had it. They had the bookwork. MF: But not as far as the hands-on that you had. JR: Right. MF: How do you think nursing has changed? JR: Well, it changed a great deal for me because I worked until ’68, and then I had the privilege of staying home while we had our kids. Then in ’86, Washington State passed a law that if you hadn’t worked or had continuing education hours, you couldn’t renew your license. I didn’t want to give up my license, so I took a refresher course. The technology had really changed. That was the biggest change for me, and it’s evolving all the time. MF: It always is. What do you think as far as the medicines, too? What you guys came through from this point to this point. It’s amazing. 20 JR: The other thing too, is all the throw-away. When we were in school, you shook down the thermometers, you cleaned them, you cleaned syringes, you sharpened the needles; and when I went back to work, it was all throw-away. MF: Pat, what do you think? PT: You know, the education – now, my head nurse says to me, we’ve been retired so long, don’t say anything, we don’t know anything. I’ve been fortunate enough to retire in ’93, but even at the point when I retired, nursing students and medical students were taking anatomy together, taking chemistry together. Especially in my specialty, in OB/GYN, the number of female physicians had greatly increased, and I remember thinking – which is nonsensical maybe – but if you can do chemistry and anatomy, if you can do these things, young lady, you go on to medical school. MF: It is interesting the change. But you know, it’s good that you had your experience, because I’m sure that served you well throughout your whole career, as far as being able to do anything that you were asked on different floors, because you had that experience. You go to a task, you’d be able to do it, because you knew that confidence that I’m sure they instilled in you, to be able to know, I can do this. JR: One of the things, too, that just popped into my minds is how, when we were in training, if the doctor came in to the nurses’ station, you got up, you gave him your seat. You got his charts for him. When I went back to work, the nurses were like, you go get it yourself. The lumbar tray is in the treatment room right over there. 21 PT: That is true. You watched the respect for nursing grow. At the University – like when we stopped wearing our caps, started wearing street clothes. MF: True; that would be a totally different era. I was telling one lady, I remember when I was nine, just seeing the glass IV bottles. The lady, I remember, she had her cap on, and her dress, and her nylons. Now it’s just a totally different thing – everybody wears the same thing; you can’t tell one from the other. JR: They have their name tags on, but they’re turned over and you can’t see who it is. You don’t know whether it’s a nurse or an aide, or who you’re talking to. MF: It’s so interesting, the change that’s happened. Did you have any thoughts? SL: I’m wondering if either of you have a patient that you remember, like while you were in training – if you have a patient that sticks in your mind. PT: I have a vague memory of when we were probies, when we first began, because it was an elderly woman, and she was in pain. I was trying to bathe her, and I remember crying. I could see my grandmother, and I can remember the sisters telling me – MF: Don’t personalize it. PT: Then, in my later career, I will always remember oncology patients that I got very close to – a lot of ovarian cancer patients, young women. And I want to say, while we have this opportunity, that this career has – what it’s done for my life. I’ve been a single parent at times, I’ve had phenomenal experiences with medicine, with physicians, with nursing friends – it has been my life. My gratitude to St. Benedict’s is huge. MF: Absolutely. 22 JR: Do you mean patients while we were in nurses’ training? SL: Preferably – or, if you have one that really stands out in your career that showcases what you learned at St. Benedict’s. JR: There’s one that sticks in my mind that’s really sad, and I think of him often. He was a little boy that came into pediatrics, a little African-American. He was like nine years old, and he had almost drowned. It was on nights, and we lost him. He started vomiting blood, and I’ll never forget it, because the doctor – he told us, there wasn’t anything we could do. I often think about that. MF: That would be a hard thing, to know that was going to come sometime along your way. That would be hard. Well, we appreciate you letting us visit with you. It’s been fun to get to know both of you.