Oral History Program Trudy Damon Interviewed by Marci Farr 14 October 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Trudy Damon Interviewed by Marci Farr 14 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: Trudy Damon, an oral history by Marci Farr, 14 October 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Trudy Damon Weber College Graduation Photo Class of 1969 Trudy Damon October 14, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Trudy Damon, conducted by Marci Farr and Melissa Johnson, on October 14, 2010. In this interview, Trudy discusses her recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing Trudy Damon and she attended St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. It is October 14, 2010 and we are interviewing her in her home in Brigham City, Utah. Tell us a little bit about your early life, about your family, where you grew up, and also where you attended school. TD: I was born and raised in Ohio—West Lake, Ohio now—it used to be Dover Center. I grew up there and went to school until I was in my junior year of school at Dover High School. My dad moved to Lakewood. My last six months I had to be in a bigger school of two hundred and fifty students up from thirty-six students. I graduated from Lakewood High School in Ohio. From there, I waited about a year, I worked, and then I went to Ohio State University. I entered the nurses program there. I was interviewed by Miss Hall, the head of the students. My girlfriend and I were both there. We said we didn’t know if we could go because we didn’t have a job or anything. She said, “I have a job for you.” She gave us a job at the hospital, we worked four hours a day at the hospital for our meals. My dad just had tuition which was twenty-five dollars a quarter. MF: That is good. TD: We were able to manage that. I went there in 1940 and in ’41 the war broke out. I quit and happened to be engaged at the time. So I quit and got married. My 2 husband was in the naval reserve for awhile. When he was called we got married. He went overseas, I was with him for awhile when he was stationed in Miami a couple of times but then he went overseas and I stayed home. That is about it. So I gave up the schooling when the war broke out. MF: That would be a challenge. Where was he at when he was stationed overseas? TD: He went overseas on a little destroyer escort to Ireland. I think they were carrying some of the soldiers, I am just not sure. Everything was kind of secret but he was overseas and he came back. He told me, “Be back in New York.” So I just got a room in New York all by myself and waited for him. I didn’t know if he was going to get back or not. And he did, he got back into port and found me. He had to call home to my sister to find out where I was in New York and met me there. Then he was transferred to some chaser training center in Florida. So I went down there with him and we lived in Florida for a short time. Then his orders came through and he went up to Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. The war was practically over by then. MF: So how did you make it to Utah? TD: Oh dear. We lived in Lima, Ohio. He had a real good job at Ford Motor Company. Somehow he had a call from out here and decided to come out for an interview with Thiokol. He said, “I don’t know whether to go out there or not and work,” because it was way out west and there we were back east. We all put what we wanted to do on a piece of paper and vote. The kids did too. I guess we all said yes that we wanted to go. It was a big step for us. It was a real big 3 step for us to come west. I missed my sisters most of all when I came, and my dad. MF: But that was best for your family, huh? TD: Yes but they got to come out here. It was kind of a challenge because a lot of people that came here left. The wives didn’t like it, they wouldn’t stay. They didn’t like the area. I got involved with bowling and church work and things. It was just good. Then I went—when did I go back to nurses’ training? I’ve got to think about that. Gary was going in the Navy and I stopped by St. Ben’s—we were driving out that way—I said, “I’ll go in and see Sister Cassian.” So I went in to see her. My daughter had gone into nurse’s training in Colorado Presbyterian Hospital in Denver. She called me on the phone one night, she said, “Mom there is a lady here that is fifty-one and she is coming into our class. It is not too late for you to go back.” I quit to get married. I had always wanted to go back. So she said, “Why don’t you see about doing that?” I called St. Ben’s and saw Sister Cassian and went to talk with her—I was forty at the time—no, she said there was a limit of forty years of age. I said, “That lets me out,” because I was forty-four. She said, “Wait a minute, not too fast! Maybe we can work it out.” I was happy about that because I just wanted to do something. There was another lady that was thirty-seven years old. She wanted to go back too. And one other lady, so there were three older ladies with all the young gals that were seventeen. It was kind of interesting but it was fun. We had good teachers. MF: You didn’t have to stay at the dorms, did you? 4 TD: Oh no, I lived at home. My classes were such that I was home by the time that my one son that was still in eighth grade—I wanted to be home when he got home from school and I was able to get home. I left in the morning just before he left for school. I said, “Will you be okay?” He said, “Yes, I’ll get on the bus.” We lived out in Perry so he was real good about that. MF: That is good. Who were some of your instructors that you remember? TD: Sister Keith, Mrs. Farr—is she any relation to you? MF: Her husband and my husband’s great-great grandfather are brothers. So yes, the long way around. TD: I will never forget in the one class we had that she said, “I never liked geriatric nursing.” I thought, “What a thing to say to a class when you are coming in.” Everything else she liked but geriatric nursing. I think that stuck with me and I never wanted to go into it either. But anyway we had a real nice class. I think of all the girls that got started we lost quite a few. They say, I think we had about thirty when we started but all the girls didn’t finish. MF: So why do you think they dropped out, because of grades or do you think other things came up? TD: That could be, grades, I don’t know why, maybe they just didn’t like it. MF: That always is a challenge. Do you remember some of the doctors that you worked with? TD: I don’t remember. There was one that had the GI gastro, Doctor Grua. The nursing instructors, there were Sister Keith, Sister Cassian never taught us 5 anything, Mrs. Farr, the pharmacy nurse—I worked in the pharmacy for awhile and I can’t think of her name. Would you know? MF: I was trying to think of—Sister Danile? Was that her? TD: Yes. I think so. She was kind of short. Sister Keith got ill and they transferred the classes over to Weber. MF: That is interesting that they would have done that so abruptly. TD: They took us in. We didn’t—you couldn’t get into Weber but they accepted us because we had that class. I don’t know what they did in the nursing into that but they did. There were only two or three of us that went to St. Ben’s. All the rest of the girls went down to Salt Lake. MF: Oh down to Holy Cross? TD: Yes I think so. I couldn’t go down to Holy Cross because I lived in Perry. I had to drive every day. MF: That would make it hard. MJ: You finished your training at Weber then? TD: Yes. We graduated from Weber. We had a June graduation that was outside with all the rest of the students. It was a long line. MF: What do you remember most about the Sisters while you were at St. Benedict’s? TD: They were strict, really strict but real nice. They were all helping you. I got along with all of them. MF: Do you remember any in particular? Was Sister Berno still there at that time? TD: No. I don’t remember that name. MF: So Sister Cassian had taken over. 6 TD: Yes she was there, she interviewed me. MF: So she was probably the director. TD: Yes she was the director. She was really nice. I will never forget the day after state boards we had to go down to Salt Lake for a couple of days. I was walking down in the hall at the hospital when I was working and she stopped me in the hall. I had my name but I didn’t have anything except my name. There was something else on it but she took it off so it showed RN. She let me know I passed. MF: That is a good thing. Did you have to do any rotations at that time? Did you have to do anything out of state? TD: No. I did a little bit at the Dee Hospital, the old Dee. MF: Yes the old, old Dee Hospital. TD: The old Dee in the psych ward which was interesting. I only had to go there a couple of days and just watch and talk with people that were in it. The patients were walking around. I don’t know why they were doing that. There was one gal that had been on there. She had taken an overdose of aspirin that I remember that I talked with. It was interesting. It is so long ago I can’t really—I mean really, I am eighty-nine now. I wonder if I can remember anything. MF: Did you have rotations on every floor? Did you have so many hours that you had to put in? TD: Yes. MF: Which floor did you enjoy the most? 7 TD: Probably—it wasn’t the nursery I don’t think. I saw one baby being born though. I can’t remember really what floor, I liked them all I guess. MF: Did you have a least favorite rotation? TD: I remember one I had to sit and watch kids through a window. You had to observe children, that must have been a class though that I had at Weber. We had to study children. I liked everything, I had to to get through. MF: Do you remember about your capping ceremony? Do you remember when that took place? Did they do a capping ceremony? TD: Yes they did. I had pictures of my capping and Sister Cassian capping me. It wasn’t the cap from Weber. It was the cap from—I have misplaced it and I can’t find it anymore. I am just going to have to look until I do. I was hoping I could find it so you would have it. I do have a picture of that. I was going to show it to you girls. I will show it to you after this film. It is a real nice picture of the girls that got capped. I had it and I told Gary, “I have misplaced it.” I don’t know if it is downstairs or where. I said, “I’d found it.” I saw it and I was kneeling and she was capping me with the St. Ben’s cap. I can’t find that cap anywhere. But I have my cap from Weber. MF: Oh good. When was graduation? TD: June of ’69. MF: That was the year I was born so it is a good year. What did you do after you graduated? Did you stay at St. Benedict’s or did you go to a different hospital? TD: I stayed at St. Benedict’s awhile and then my husband worked out at Thiokol. He talked with the doctor that worked out there. They needed a nurse. 8 MF: Oh so industrial nursing. TD: I had nothing to do with industrial nursing in my classes but I got the job with Doctor Lewis. He had been at St. Ben’s for awhile. So I worked with him for eleven and a half years before he left. I missed him when he left. We got another younger doctor in there but I worked almost twelve years out there. MF: What do you think was probably your greatest challenge going through nurses’ training? TD: When I went back to Weber I had to take some other courses that weren’t really—they were college courses. It was rough. I told my husband I never would have gotten through physics if he hadn’t helped me. MF: That is good. TD: As I remember, Ohio State physics was terrible. And I got a terrible grade and had a terrible instructor. It was awful. MF: We are glad you made it through. That is a good thing. Did you have anything you wanted to ask her? MJ: I was wondering—when you first started nurses’ training in Ohio, what made you decide that you wanted to be a nurse? TD: My mother was ill when I was—she was very ill and died in 1935. I was in ninth grade. I took care of her in bed. She called me Trudy and nobody else did. Kids used to call me Ort in school. She said, “You’d make a good nurse.” My mother said that to me. I was just in high school and my mom died. I just always thought I’d like to be a nurse. Then the war came along and I got married. 9 MF: Do you think you appreciated your training since you were starting out when you had children? Do you think it was easier? I know it wasn’t probably easier but you had more dedication because you had a family already. TD: It could be because my daughter had entered nurses’ training. She encouraged me too because she always knew I wanted to be one because I had left training. MJ: How far into your training did you get before you got married? TD: There was a first year you had because it was at Ohio State. You had a first year of nothing but studies and no clinical work. Then the first six months of the next year was clinical work of six months. If you could’ve seen the uniforms that we had—the skirts, the sleeves, and the aprons, and we had to wear black stockings while we were in the first part of it. We couldn’t wear our white shoes yet because it was the probationary period. MJ: Did you get into the clinical work in Ohio before you got married or did you just have that first year? TD: I just had that first year. I quit and went home and got a job. So I left the nursing and never went back until I had gotten married. MJ: That was quite a big period where you weren’t in the training, was there a big difference when you went back? Did you notice a big change in the way that they taught the courses? TD: Yes. I worked at the hospital in the supply room when I was going to college. I cleaned needles with ether, the liquid ether. Then we would wash them and wrap them and send them up to the autoclaves. I worked in the central supply room with this girl I was going to school with. It was a little bit different than 10 throwing away everything now. It was glass syringes and needles, it was interesting. It was a good job to have. MF: So what did you do after you were at Thiokol? Did you stay there? TD: I worked there almost twelve years. MF: Did you retire after that? TD: I retired when I was sixty-three. I didn’t want to work anymore. I could have gone on and worked another couple of years but that was a long drive out there for me. I worked swing shift but that was the one I liked. Doctor Lewis, when he lost a day nurse, he said, “Don’t you want to work days with me?” I thought, “Oh I don’t want to get up at five in the morning and have to drive out there.” I thanked him anyway. He was always good to me. He was good to work for. So I just worked the swing shift. MF: That is great. Well thanks for letting us come visit with you. We appreciate you sharing your memories about St. Benedict’s. TD: I am glad too. MF: I am glad you called us up so we could get your story.