Oral History Program Catherine Hogge, Josephine Heslop Manning, & Jean Graham Woodfield Interviewed by Marci Farr 5 August 2008 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Catherine Hogge, Josephine Heslop Manning, & Jean Graham Woodfield Interviewed by Marci Farr 5 August 2008 Copyright © 2009 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: Catherine Hogge, Josephine Heslop Manning & Jean Graham Woodfield, an oral history by Marci Farr, 5 August 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Josephine Heslop Manning Application Photo June 20, 1940 Graduation Photo Class of 1944 Jean Graham Woodfield Application Photo February 1942 Graduation Photo Class of 1945 Catherine Hogge, Josephine Heslop Manning, Jean Graham Woodfield August 5, 2008 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Catherine Hogge, Josephine Heslop Manning and Jean Graham Woodfield. It was conducted August 5, 2008 and concerns her recollections and experiences with the Dee School of Nursing. The interviewer is Marci Farr, and Joan Hubbard was also present. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing Jean Graham Woodfield, Josephine Manning, and Catherine Hogge. Today is August 05, 2008 and we are interviewing in the Waterstradt room at the Stewart Library. Jean Woodfield graduated from the Dee School of Nursing in 1945. Josephine graduated in 1944 and Catherine ran the store next to the nurses home. Jean tell us about your early life, where you were born, raised, and where you went to school. JW: I was born in Morgan, Utah in the railroad depot. My father was the station agent where they had a living quarters. I went through my whole twelve years at Morgan School District. I don’t have any children and I did not have any brothers and sisters. It was just my mother and me. My father died when I was twenty months old. MF: Okay. JW: So my mother raised me. My friend Betty Jo Bridges and I decided we would come to nurses training because she had two aunts that were nurses and so we thought that sounded like a real good thing to do. And, of course, the Dee Hospital was the closest to Morgan and in those days we didn’t have a whole lot of money and you went wherever it was convenient. That is why we came to the Dee. 1 MF: What did you have to do to get into the hospital? Did you just apply? JW: We had to come down and apply and we had a lot of papers we had to fill out. We had to have our physicals and all that. What else Jo? JM: You had to have a physical and go to the dentist. JW: We saw that in those records we just looked at. Then we came in and started training. MF: And when you started it was during World War II, right? Tell us a little bit about that. JM: I was in training, just before World War II started. So it was a big shock. I went in in September and it happened the 7th of December. So right away things seemed to change. Everything got speeded up and we had to do a lot of things that we would not normally have had to do as we went through training. JW: Yes. Yes. JM: Of course, we followed what was going on. I think one of the biggest shocks was right away at Pearl Harbor, one of our doctor’s sons was killed. JM: And he was quite a big-wig on that battleship that sunk. I don’t remember which one it was. JW: Me either. JM: They have the memorial for it now but it was sad to watch him because the father just seemed to go downhill. MF: I am sure. That is devastation. JM: I think his name was Doctor Morell. No, not Doctor Morell, Merrill. I think it was Merrill. 2 JW: Les Merrill. JM: And his son was killed. JW: Yes. JM: He had such promise. JW: Yes. I had forgotten about that. JM: It was a terrible shock to the family. JW: Yes, it really was. We went without things because everything was rationed. We had little coupon books and we had to bring them and turn them in so they could get like sugar or anything that was rationed. So we turned in our little books and I can’t remember how much sugar you got per coupon… JM: I don’t remember either. MF: What about your nylons? I heard a story that they were in short supply, you had to take care of your nylons if they ran you would have to mend them. JW: I tell you…you bet you mended them. You took very nice care of them. You did not…because you knew you were not going to get another pair. Also, shoes were rationed so you got one pair of shoes and you were very careful with it. MF: You were very careful with it. JW: Yes. MF: That is good. JW: We had our white shoes and our white shoelaces, do you remember Mrs.… JM: And they better be white. JW: …Mrs. Glasscott was the director or nursing when we went in… MF: Yes. 3 JW: …and she was from the old school with the high white collar and the long sleeves all starched. She was a no nonsense type of lady. I mean, she would come along and she would look down at your shoes, hopefully they were clean and the shoelaces because she said she wanted shoelaces as clean as a white linen hanky. She looked to make sure that just was the shape they were in. MF: Oh my goodness. JM: And you know they gave us our uniforms. MF: They were supplied. JW: Yes. JM: But it wasn’t even six months and you had outgrown them. I was really skinny when I went in. JW: Yes. JM: And so pretty soon I stopped using the belt and got called to the front office because I didn’t have my belt on. It wouldn’t go around me anymore. MF: Too many ice creams from Catherine? JM: It was sad. CH: No. JW: You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you? CH: No way. I just gave them the bare necessities. JW: The things they had to have to get by with. MF: What did you have in your shop Catherine? CH: Oh lands…everything. It was a confectionery. MF: So everything. 4 CH: Yes. We had a soda fountain and we had can goods and everything in there. It was confectionery. JM: It was a pharmacy too, wasn’t it? CH: No, not until later. JM: Oh later. CH: LaMoine took over and yes. JM: Okay. CH: Yes it wasn’t a pharmacy while it was— JW: But you had a lot of groceries that people in the neighborhood might need… CH: Yes. JW: …you know, like corn flakes, tuna fish and that type of thing. CH: Things were in ration. You had to have a ration book. JM: And soda water. JW: Yes. Soda water and ice cream. MF: When you entered the school, what were your impressions as far as how they ran it? JW: Yes. Well, I said, we toed the line because we didn’t know any other way. MF: Yes. JW: So we did exactly what we were told. JM: Right. JW: We were darn sure that we got in on time. They didn’t lock us out. JM: That was a quarter to ten you had to be in, wasn’t it? 5 JW: Yes. In bed by ten. The only time you were late was if you worked the three to eleven shift then the night nurses let you back in… MF: They let you back in. JW: …after eleven. MF: At that time were you required to attend church or was it your choice at that time? JW: What did we have every morning? We had— JM: Did we have chapel? JW: We had chapel every morning. JM: We called it chapel. JW: Like a prayer and a song. MF: Okay. JW: Not too much, you know, it took about five or ten minutes maybe. We did not have to go to church. MF: It was not required? JW: We were not required to go to church. In fact we had to work— JM: I was going to say…you never were off to go to church. JW: We would not have gotten to go to church if we had wanted to because we had to work. MF: Yes, because you had your shifts. Tell us about your first six months. You were probees, right? JW: Yes. MF: Did you walk around with the nurse to learn what you had to do? Tell us about your first six months. 6 JW: No we did not just walk around. They gave you a lot to do and you got off your pony and did it. CH: Bed pans and everything. JM: I think we started out by having to clean a unit. JW: Yes. JM: If a patient went home then the nurses had to go in and completely clean it. MF: So you wouldn’t be observing—you would be doing hands on from the beginning. JM: They were watching you. They had curtains above the doors and you could see them just above the curtain… JW: Peeking through. JM: …as you were giving a bedbath. JW: See what you were doing. JM: They knew exactly what you were doing. JW: Yes they did indeed. JM: I don’t know why we didn’t shut the big heavy door at night. JW: Because we weren’t smart enough. CH: You were obedient. JW: Thank you. CH: That is the word. JW: Let them peek over the door and see what we were not doing probably. But anyway—we didn’t get much observing time. We went right to work… MF: They put you right in. JW: …because they were short of help. 7 MF: Because of the war? JW: The war— JM: The war changed things, yes. JW: We just started right in. They gave us things to do and you didn’t always have anybody to even help you or ask. MF: So you were doing a lot of…maybe what doctors…I mean, you were just taking care of the whole floor…you just did everything. JW: You did a lot of things that perhaps nowadays they would say you shouldn’t have done. MF: Yes. JM: In those days they had big wards. You remember ward J…how it had fourteen beds in there. JW: Fourteen beds in each one of those. JM: Fourteen beds. JW: Fourteen women in one and fourteen men in another. MF: Oh my word. JM: Yes. MF: That is a few patients. And you would have to take care of every one of them. JM: Well no usually they are big. JW: Maybe they would give you three or four. MF: Okay. JW: The curtains we used to pull between the beds, just a big heavy curtain was the only… 8 MF: Privacy. JW: …sectioning of between these beds wasn’t it? MF: That is good. Were you two roommates when you were in the program? JW: No. We were in different classes, yes. MF: Okay because you were ’44 and you were ’45, is that right? JW: Yes. JM: Did you come in a year or just six months after we did? JW: A year. JM: A year, okay. JW: Well no, let us see, you went in in September. JM: Yes. JW: We went in in June because of the war. JM: Yes. JW: So it was six months after you. JM: You were just six months. JW: Yes. Because of the war they took— JM: They needed more help. JW: —we were the first class that they took. MF: So they did two classes, is that what they did? JM: We were separate, weren’t we? JW: We were separate. MF: Okay. 9 JM: You would end up on the same floor and by the time you got your cap it wasn’t very long before you would almost be in charge. JW: They pushed you right along. JW: Yes. MF: You were trained in every aspect of the whole hospital and not just a certain specialty. JM: Yes. MF: Tell us some of the procedures you had to do. I have heard about the glass syringes. You had to sterilize everything. You reused the rubber gloves, everything like that, your medicine. Tell us a little bit about that. You had to sharpen your needles, Josephine told us about that. JM: Oh that is right. JW: The needles. We didn’t have disposable anything. JM: No. JW: Everything was reusable. JM: We mended rubber gloves. MF: That is what you said. You had to take care of it, use it, and reuse it. JW: Yes, everything was washed and reused. CH: And sterilized. JW: And sterilized, yes. MF: That is good. You were doing your part for the environment back then so good job. That is good. So if you had a night off what is something you would do? We 10 have heard some good stories about climbing in and out of windows. Were there any dances that you would attend? JW: We had very little recreation. Did we? JM: I can’t remember. JW: I can’t remember any recreation. JM: I doubt we did a lot. MF: And with the war I’m sure you were kept busy. JM: Gas was rationed. You couldn’t go out and joy ride. MF: That is true. JM: And you were lucky if you could go home and spend the night at home even though I lived in West Weber. MF: That is true. Just down the street? JW: During the war the Union Pacific railroad resurrected an old train and brought it back into service and used to go from Ogden to Park City everyday. JM: Oh yes. JW: I used to go down and wait and get on the train and ride to Morgan. I knew the engineer there and the fellows that were there so they would let me off in front of my house in Morgan and I would get off and visit for the day and then when they came back in the afternoon they would stop and pick me up and I’d come on in to Ogden. MF: That is great. JW: They would stop out in the yards to switch which would take about an hour so there was an old gentleman that was a friend of my father’s on the railroad and 11 he would have me get off the train and we would go up through the yards up to Wall Avenue and he would give me a nickel to ride the bus to go back up to the nurse’s home. That was a big treat to get to go home just for the day— MF: Exactly. JW: —which we did once in a long time. MF: Yes. That is great. JW: That was my recreation other than climbing out the window. MF: Having Catherine give you an ice cream on the corner. JW: Having her give me an ice cream on the corner, yes. CH: Whatever they wanted or needed. JW: We would call her and tell her, you know, “We are kind of over here again and we can’t go off the corner, would you bring us ice cream?” CH: Anything they needed. MF: You were more than willing to do it. CH: Yes. MF: That is great. CH: We made a little path across the street. JW: Yes. CH: On 24th street. MF: That is great. JM: Did it bother you that the seniors and juniors had so much control over you? You know— JW: We had to bow down. 12 JM: Yes, bow down to those seniors. JW: Bow down and scrape to them. JM: It was kind of— JW: Yes, it did. They took advantage of us is what they did. JM: But I got over it before the war was over. MF: I am sure because you had to work together. There was just no other way that it worked. JM: And I don’t remember that we were that way when we were seniors. JW: Oh no, we were nice. CH: I was waiting for that question. I thought, now wait a minute, what happened to turnabout. JW: Nice girls, weren’t we? CH: Yes. MF: Alright, let me just find…where am I at? Your capping ceremony took place after six months, correct? JW: Yes. MF: Tell us about that. Do you remember where that took place? JW: Ours was…I don’t know what the ward was…it was over on… JM: Same one as— JW: …Jackson. JM: 21st or— CH: 13th ward. JW: 21st and Jackson? 13 JM: I think I gave you a copy of that program. JW: I can’t remember. CH: It must have been the 13th ward. MF: Yes we have got it scanned. JM: Yes and it tells who the speakers were… MF: Okay. JM: …and all that. I don’t really— JW: I don’t remember only that it was on Jackson is what I could remember. JM: You would walk all that way from the nursing home with your cap… CH: It was the 13th ward. JM: …and your cape. JW: We had to have our cape on. JM: Yes. JW: Because we had our big capes. MF: That is where you received your little lanterns right? Was it the Florence Nightengale lanterns that you received? JM: The little lamp. JW: The little lamp. JM: If I had one I don’t know where it went. JW: We never got to keep them. If they gave us one it was just to hold it and hand it back. MF: Just for the ceremony. JW: Just a ceremony type of thing. 14 MF: That is good. Do you remember any of the members of the Dee family? Did you know who they were or associate with any of them? JW: Not really, did we? JM: No. JW: I don’t remember, no. MF: Okay. JW: Maud Dee Porter, later in life I became acquainted with her but I think earlier we did not know the family. JM: We would hear about them. JW: We heard about them but we did not see them or have anything to do with them at all. MF: When you finally graduated, what did you do with your career Jean? Did you stay at the Dee hospital? JW: I stayed at the Dee Hospital and supervised the medical floor for ten years. JM: For ten years? JW: For ten years. Then I went to work for Doctor Lowe down at the First Security Bank in their office down there and I stayed there and then they built an office up 24th street so I went up there and worked for them. I stayed there and worked for Doctor Lowe until he retired. Then I retired for a couple of years and then I went back to work for Doctor Archibald and I worked for him for ten years over at the hospital they tore down. MF: That is good. When did you retire? JW: In ’89. 15 MF: In ’89, okay, that is good. How do you think nursing has changed over the years? How do you think it has changed? JW: Yes. MF: Now they are trained to run the computer. JM: I think they are teaching them a lot more technical things where we were better bedside nurses. MF: Exactly, you had that extra touch. JM: Yes, that is right. MF: Take the time to care. JM: But as far as we were concerned, if you took care of a patient with pneumonia, you always remembered the symptoms, you always remembered the treatment where if you read it in a book it doesn’t mean the same. MF: It doesn’t because you have never watched it. JM: Yes. You can read a book but you see a lot of different things if you are actually taking care of a patient. MF: Yes that is true. And you had that experience from the war and also how you were trained hands on. JM: That is why I think living there for three years was the best way to get that kind of training, however if I get with my daughter who teaches nursing at a college then she would kind of disagree with you because she says you have to know so much more technical stuff. JW: More technical things now than we learned. MF: Yes, that is true. 16 JM: But we learned it through experience. MF: I think sometimes that is the best way. JW: Yes. JM: That is right. You recognize the symptoms quicker I think. MF: Exactly, you are able to take care of it. JW: We were taught that you saw people’s teeth were brushed, their hair was combed. Now that seems to be one of those things that if you can do it yourself, fine, if you can’t… MF: Too bad, deal with it. JW: …do it yourself. But I said we would have gotten scolded terribly if we wouldn’t have taken care of all this, wouldn’t we? JM: I could recite incidents. I don’t even know if you want to hear it. MF: You should tell us. JM: This woman who had gotten a bloodstream infection, somehow it turned into an osteo, and this is before penicillin. So they had operated and opened it up so it could drain from her spine and so she was in a body cast and the only opening was maybe a twelve inch where the wound was and another little part, otherwise she was just in a total bandage, in a cast. So it was my turn to take care of her. And I thought, “Oh around that wound is horrible. It is all achy and bloody and it needs to all come out.” So I thought, “I am just going to really take care of her.” And I pulled it all out and worked on it until I got done. When I got down to the wound itself, there were maggots in it. MF: You are serious? 17 JM: I heard this…that there are such things as using maggots but they hadn’t intended that. So I ran and got my supervisor and she ran to get an intern and everybody was really shook up about these maggots in this wound. When it was all over they gave me heck for not combing her hair. MF: You were just doing your job. Did you receive any pay? Were you compensated while you were in training? JM: Five or ten dollars a month wasn’t it? JW: We got a little bit after World War II while in the cadet nursing program. JM: Oh you may have got some, I didn’t go into the cadets. JW: And then we got a little bit but I don’t remember what it was. It was a very minimal amount. MF: Okay. JM: Some of these girls that were in the cadets were going to go up to Brigham to Bushnell… JW: Some of our class did go up to Bushnell. I did not go but some of them did. MF: Okay. JW: In fact two of the girls in my class married amputees from Bushnell. JM: Oh really? JW: Yes. MF: That just lasted until the war was over, right? JW: They were just up there a few months…I can’t remember how long they were there. 18 MF: Faye Ball showed me her whole uniform. She had the summer and the winter school uniform, she still kept them. JW: Yes. MF: When we have our reception next year we are going to have her uniforms displayed. JW: That will be fun. MF: Do you remember how much your tuition to attend the school was? JW: I don’t remember, do you? JM: No. JW: That was a long time ago, I don’t remember. It probably wasn’t a whole lot of money. If it had been too much money I couldn’t have gone. MF: Yes. JW: I know that. JM: Wasn’t the total starting ninety-nine dollars? JW: I am thinking seventy-five to ninety-nine…under a hundred at any rate. JM: It seemed like my dad paid ninety-nine and then I don’t remember if he bought the cape or if they gave it to us. JW: I think they gave us— JM: I think they did give us the cape. JW: I think the capes were given to us. JM: I thought ninety-nine dollars in that day with a big family like we had was quite a bit. JW: A lot of money. 19 MF: Probably is. And that was for a full year, right? JM: That was the whole thing. MF: That was your whole three years? JW: That was for the three year program. JM: That was the three years. MF: Yes, that would be quite a bit to take care of that. JM: Nowadays what they pay to go to college… JW: Oh my goodness. MF: We are not going to talk about that. It is way too much money. JM: And we got our board and room. MF: That probably helped too because then that way you stayed at the nurses home and you got fed and that probably made a big difference as far as that. Did you have to buy your books or were they supplied for you? Do you remember? JM: They furnished them all. JW: They furnished the books, we didn’t have to buy them. MF: Everything was furnished. So that must have been part of your tuition? JW: Yes, that was a big help too. MF: That is true because books are so expensive. I know now it is about four hundred dollars. JM: Well that is terrible. MF: That is a terrible price. JW: Certainly is. 20 MF: Tell us about a normal shift if you were on the hospital floor, if you were on the morning shift, what were your duties? JM: The morning shift? MF: Yes. JM: It didn’t matter what shift you went on you had to go to report. JW: Report. JM: You had to go to report and you would usually take a few notes on what had happened even though it is written down for your own benefit on special things that happened to patients during the night. MF: Okay. JM: And then they would serve breakfast or you would have to go in and maybe clean up the rooms and serve breakfast and then— JW: Or if they had a delayed tray because of blood work or something like that then you had to make sure that the patient got their food later or make sure they got the right food, if they were on a special diet. MF: Yes. Did you have to work in the kitchen? JW: Yes. JM: Yes we did. MF: We are going to pause for a minute. CH: Necessarily just about anything… JH: Just anything. CH: …that we had. JH: Yes. 21 CH: Confectionery. JM: You would take them ice cream pies. CH: Milkshakes and ice cream. MF: Ice cream. JM: You would bring us those big party pack bottles of root beer. CH: Yes. JM: And we would share it. CH: Yes. JM: One bottle…we’d share it. MF: Your cloak closet sharing? JM: Yes. CH: Yes. JH: Well I am so appreciative of you doing this for us. That is wonderful. JW: It brings back a lot of memories. MF: Yes. JW: I had only been in about six months when World War II started… JH: Yes. JW: …and things changed so much. That was one of the terrible things that left a mark on you. JH: Oh sure. JW: Then I thought, “What things happened during that three years that I would always remember?” And I think it was the train wreck out on the Lucin cut-off. It was at Christmas time. Is it in there? 22 MF: I copied it for Faye Ball. Yes I just found out about that. She said the exact same thing that you did. JW: So what they did…they sent a bunch of nurses out and then they were going to bring all the patients back but they couldn’t get to the other side. The train that ran into the first one was on the Utah side and the others were already into Nevada so they took them to San Francisco. But all the dead people they brought back to our hospital. They would take them to mortuaries except the military. And those people that were killed, those men, they brought them to our hospital until Hill Field could come and get them. That was…I will always remember that. JH: How many people were killed in the wreck? JM: You know, I don’t remember exactly. MF: Yes, I can’t remember either. JM: But I think we had six or eight service men as I remember. I don’t remember exactly but I know they had to take the offices down by the front hall and they made that into a little morgue until they could come and get them. JH: Oh dear. MF: Let us see… JH: Well I… MF: I don’t know if it even says in here…I just was…oh eighty-one…let us see…there was eighty-one. JM: Eighty-one were killed? 23 MF: No it says eighty-one people were injured…it doesn’t say…let us see. Of course, I am reading it—oh it says—okay right here—“It was sixty years ago that a train wreck in Ogden killed some fifty people including at least thirty-five army and naval personnel.” Yes because Faye asked me about that and I said, “I’ll google it and find it for you.” JH: Oh…fifty-one killed. MF: So that is a lot of people to have that kind of— JH: What caused the train wreck? JM: One train ran into the rear end of another one. I don’t know what caused the first train to stop but I think it was fog on the lake…they didn’t see it…and they didn’t have the radar and that we have nowadays. CH: No. JM: So it is hard to believe that that many people would get hurt or killed. JH: Oh my goodness. MF: It did say the fog, yes. That is bad even where we are out in West Weber and when we get fog it is so bad you can’t even see right in front of your car. Those impressions—those are great. Thank you for sharing that with us. JM: That is the worst ones I can remember. MF: That would be hard. JM: You would have car wrecks and things like that but— MF: But that was a lot of people to have— CH: Yes and service men even worse. MF: Yes, exactly. 24 JH: It is so nice to meet you all and again, thank you very much for doing this. JW: Nice to meet you. MF: We had to have Joan come say hi. JW: I can’t remember other than it was an automobile accident of sorts and they brought this gentleman in. I had just been in the emergency room or surgery because our emergency room and surgery was all together, wasn’t it, at that time? JM: Yes. JW: They said to me to undress this guy and, you know, he was just on this cart. And so I proceeded to try and get his clothes off in his mangled up shape there and I remember picking off his…I went to take off his boots and took off his foot along with his boot. I was so startled and realized what I had done and I thought for a minute, “Do you try and put it back on?” Not that it was going to stick for heaven sake. CH: No but you don’t know. JW: I think it was my first six months in training and I was just frightened. MF: You had never experienced anything like that. JW: I had never seen anything like that before. I can remember that. If I live to be one hundred I can just see that foot coming off in that boot. MF: My goodness. JW: Gosh, the things you do remember? MF: Oh yes, those are the ones? 25 JW: I thought back to when my mother worked for the country doctor there at Morgan and so sometimes after school I would stop by the office on my way home. And I stopped one day and they brought this man from the cement plant, he was in an accident up there, and they brought him down in the car and they had him out in this car and the doctor had gone down the street, my mother went after him, and I looked out there and here is this fellow out there passing out, falling out, they had left the car door open and he is falling out and there I stood—I could not move out of my tracks I was so frightened—all I could see was blood. I will never forget that if I live to be one hundred. I said, “Mother, he could have fallen right out in the street and I would have stood there and let him.” She said, “Well why didn’t you just step over and move the car door over so he wouldn’t fall out?” I said, “I don’t know.” CH: Too scared. JW: I was. I was absolutely petrified. And then after that, I decided I wanted to be a nurse. JM: Oh. JW: And I thought oh boy. CH: That was a shock. JW: Things that happen. MF: We appreciate you taking time to share some memories with us. Did you have anything you wanted to ask them Sarah or are you good? SL: No. MF: We are good. 26 JW: She wants to ask me how I got out that— SL: I do want to know how you got out the windows. JW: —how I got out that window. Very carefully. CH: Yes. JW: Oh the days huh? SL: Were you sneaking out to meet a gentleman or just to get out. JW: I was sneaking out to meet someone for sure, yes. Yes I was. I remember one night we snuck out, a whole bunch of us went over and I can’t remember who we met out there, anyway, we went out to the old mill and we were just doing our thing and turned around and there was Lucy Taylor and what was her name? Brewerton. That was the— JM: They were our leaders. They were teachers. JW: They were the teachers. At that time she was the Director of Nurses and she was out there and fortunately they both had had a little much liquid refreshment and didn’t recognize us and so anyway— JM: You left right in a hurry. JW: Oh we got out of there in a hurry. I said, “Get us on back there!” That day I got in the window quickly. JM: That time they didn’t say anything to you either. JW: No. JM: They didn’t check to see who it was. JW: No. JM: She didn’t remember. 27 JW: She wouldn’t have known who I was. JM: She took over as Director of Nurses when Oetta Glasscock had cancer and had to quit. JW: She had to quit and then she took over because she was the assistant wasn’t she? JM: She was Director of Nurses as long as I was in training. JW: Yes. MF: Did she die just before you graduated or was it a little while after? JM: You mean Lucille? MF: No, Glasscock. JM: You know, I don’t remember…it must have been… MF: It was pretty close…I think it was around that time. JW: She didn’t live too long after that. JM: No. MF: After she was diagnosed…yes it was pretty close I think. JW: Close to that time as I recall. MF: I think so. I’ll have to check that out. JM: Back in those days they did a lot of private duty nursing. You could be a private duty in any part of the hospital. And the patient hired you and the patient paid. MF: What is your favorite floor? What did you like the best? CH: Nursery. MF: The nursery. JM: Everything but the diet kitchen. 28 MF: Yes. JM: I hated the diet kitchen. JW: That was a miserable experience because we had Mrs. Rasmussen. You remember her? Miserable old soul. JM: Poor thing. MF: Thank you so much for sharing your memories with us. 29