Oral History Program Hope Carol Kohler Mortensen Interviewed by Marci Farr 16 March 2009 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Hope Carol Kohler Mortensen Interviewed by Marci Farr 16 March 2009 Copyright © 2010 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Dee School of Nursing was founded in 1910 to provide training for nurses who would staff the new Dee Memorial Hospital. The first class of eight nurses graduated from the school in 1913 and the school continued to operate until 1955, with a total of more than 700 graduates. A new nursing school and home located just east of the hospital was completed in 1917 and all nursing students were required to live in the home during their training. This oral history project was created to capture the memories of the school's alumni before their stories disappear in the same way the Dee Hospital has disappeared. The oral interviews focus on how the women became involved with the school, their experiences going through training, and how they used the training. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management Special Collections All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Hope Carol Kohler Mortensen, an oral history by Marci Farr, 16 March 2009, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Hope Carol Kohler Mortensen Application Photo September 1950 Graduation Photo Class of 1954 Hope Carol Kohler Mortensen September 16, 2009 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Hope Carol Kohler Mortensen. It was conducted March 16, 2009 and concerns her recollections and experiences with the Dee School of Nursing. The interviewer is Marci Farr. Sarah Langsdon is also present. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing Hope Kohler Mortensen. She graduated from the Dee School of Nursing in 1954. HM: You might want to say Hope Carol Kohler Mortensen because I used to go by Hope Carol. MF: It is March 16, 2009. We are interviewing her at her home in Salt Lake City. We are just going to start off with a few questions about your early life. Just tell us where you grew up, where you went to school, and about your family. HM: I grew up in Logan, where I was adopted as an infant by a single lady, Katie Wursten, who was already forty-six years old. Three years later she accepted a baby boy, Leon, from another family. Then, when I was eight years old and Leon was five, she married a seventy-two year old man, Jacob Kohler, whom she had known many years before when they were L.D.S Church missionaries in the Northern States Mission. Like Katie, Jacob immigrated from Switzerland when he was young. He still had a family in Oregon, but his first wife had died. He came to Logan to work in the temple and became reacquainted with Katie. After a time, he asked her to marry him. She was hesitant and asked us what we thought she should do? When we realized that the beautiful new Dodge Sedan out in front of our house would be ours, of course we said, “Yes, mama, marry him.” What we 1 didn't realize was that he had one eye totally damaged by glaucoma, and a partial cataract on the other. Needless to say, his driving was less than perfect! When we rode in the car with him, I would pray that he wouldn't drive on the wrong side of the road and have a wreck. When I was eleven, he sold the car. We knew we would have to walk a whole lot more, but it was a huge relief to not be subjected to either his or Mother's driving. It was an interesting family to grow up in. Mama was the youngest of eight children who, with their mother, came from Switzerland. The father apparently had divorced his wife when she joined the L.D.S. Church. Katie told us she grew up with a speech impediment due to the way her teeth had grown. She said even family members made fun of her when she lisped. She was always the one who helped when extended family members were sick or had new babies. Through this, she inspired me to want to help others also. Mama had worked as a dental assistant until she had to quit to take care of family during the 1917 flu epidemic. She lost that job, but she always showed interest in the medical/dental field. Katie was an achiever who always tried to better herself. She hoped one day to become a teacher, but realized that wouldn't be possible with only three years of formal elementary schooling. She and daddy had many “old country” ideas about how to treat illnesses. MF: So you mean like old cures? HM: Yes, like orange peels that were supposed to cure dad's eyes. I wanted to learn correct, modern ways to treat illnesses, so I became a nurse. Sometimes, I would try and change their ideas. This didn't always make peace at home. My parents 2 wanted me to do well, so, I tried hard to make them proud of me. I loved things that had to do with science. I went to the Adams Grade School, then Logan Junior High, and graduated from Logan High School in 1951. That fall, when I was eighteen, I entered the Dee Memorial Hospital Nursing School in Ogden. I had been accepted into the Budge Hospital Nursing School in Logan, but it was closed that year, thus the move to Ogden. MF: What were your impressions when you finally made it to the hospital? What did you think of it? HM: Oh, I thought it was just wonderful! It wasn’t a brand new school by any means. Even the nurse's home had some rooms that were nice and some that weren’t. I always liked being part of a group. It was hard to be separated from all my high school friends, but gaining all the new nursing students as friends was definitely a plus. To me, nursing school was the best sorority a girl could ever have. It was a great way to gain an education while learning how to help other people. MF: That is true. Are you still close to the friends you made along the way? HM: Patty Pilcher Layton and I are still best friends. I attend most of the school and class reunions. It is wonderful to keep in touch. MF: That is great. MF: How did you get to Weber College? Did you walk down? HM: Oh yes. We used to go over to 25th street. For months we'd thumb rides, or get Curg, the only male nursing student, to do the thumbing, and then we’d all hop in. Finally it got so that people were complaining about us; so many of us ruining 3 their cars with the excess weight. One day, Miss Manning (Marie Manning Donaldson), our anatomy and physiology instructor, came to us and said (and she could be really severe), “It has come to our attention that a bunch of you are thumbing rides to school and ruining people's car suspensions. So we would like you to quit it as of now!” Needless to say, we didn’t do it anymore! This meant that we had to walk all the way to Washington Boulevard in the morning, back to the hospital on Harrison Boulevard for lunch, then back and forth again for afternoon classes. MF: That is a little bit of a jog. HM: Yes it was. MF: What were some of the classes you had to take down there? HM: At Weber College we took classes such as nutrition and chemistry. I didn’t have a really good background in math because until high school chemistry, my last math class had been ninth grade algebra. Fortunately, in my senior year of high school, when I was having difficulty with chemistry math equations, I had a wonderful, elderly teacher who would let me come in each day after school to be tutored. He knew I was determined not to flunk and needed the knowledge for nursing school. Finally, one day, the “light dawned” and I was able to understand equations. So many in my all-girl class were afraid of the chemicals. My partner, a junior, and I decided we were not going to let any old chemicals terrify us. Many times our classmates would ask us for help. Passing this class helped give me confidence to go to nursing school where I knew I would have to take another chemistry class. Over the years, many “would-be” nurses have said they either 4 didn't attempt nursing school or dropped out because they couldn't pass chemistry. MF: It is hard. HM: Having the high school class made the college chemistry class much easier. MF: That is good. You had some of your classes at the nursing home, right? HM: Yes. Our Nursing Arts classes were at the hospital or the nursing home classroom. Eventually our teachers began to realize what a lot of time it was taking for us to go back and forth to Weber - after we could no longer thumb rides. Probably within less than two months after we started training, we were already working in the hospital; therefore some Weber teachers came up to the nursing school to teach our classes. MF: Oh, that's good. HM: I remember our first summer, when we were so ready for a break, but had to take classes, there was a sociology professor that was just a little dry. He kept coming to the Nurse's Home and, finding that many of the students were missing, he would say, “Where is everybody?” And we would say, “They are up at Pine View Dam,” which was true. One day he had had enough so he said, “Tomorrow's class will be held at the Dam”. That was the best class we ever had - sitting on logs and blankets. Having fun swimming and eating made summer school a little more tolerable that day! So much was expected of us on such a continuous basis. MF: That is true. 5 HM: I remember how scared I was to enter my first patient's room. I was assigned to dust the bedside table and the dresser and then cover them with doilies. “You mean I am going to have to talk to a patient?” The experience wasn't too terrifying because the patient was really nice. We soon learned that our tasks encompassed much more than dusting and placing doilies! We quickly became responsible for everything! MF: For everything that happened with the patients? HM: Yes. MF: This (referring to our first class picture) is what you started with? How many students were there? HM: Thirty-four. MF: This photo shows a male student in the Class of '54, Craig Peterson. HM: His name was Curg Peterson, from Nampa, Idaho. Most of us fell in love with him because he was so kind and interesting. He had to live in the hospital apartments. The interns were always teasing him. Once they wrapped him neck to toe in tape and took him through the hospital on a gurney. MF: Really? HM: Yes. He missed out on the camaraderie the rest of us enjoyed day and night because, except for the visitors room and the classroom, the nursing home was off limits to him. MF: That's too bad. HM: He was so great about helping us lift heavy patients and care for some of the men. Eventually he dropped out and became an undertaker. He used to come 6 back sometimes to take us swimming. He married a girl from Hyrum. While he was an undertaker, he injured his back lifting a corpse and was in a body cast for months. He said his wife left him during that time. All the lifting he had helped us with in the hospital that first year probably didn't help his back any. I didn't see Curg for years, until one evening in Palmdale, California, when I took my teenagers to an L.D.S. Church dance practice. I was suddenly picked up, swung around and kissed by none other than my friend, Curg Peterson! He and his second wife, Uloah were living in Los Angeles, California and were in charge of the All Girls dances for the Rose Bowl Festival there. He was in Palmdale to assist with the dance training. MF: Oh how funny. HM: He told me he and Uloah were staying together to help raise her children, but that after the kids graduated high school, they (the parents) were going to divorce. Several years ago I learned that he had returned to Ogden, and remarried. I didn't find out that he had been very ill and hospitalized until after he died. I was so sorry not to see him again. He would have made such a good nurse. MF: Yes. That is what Glorya said. Show me everybody we have talked about. (Picture of Class of '54.) HM: This is Virginia Hunter Tanner. This is Bonnie Howard Judkins, and here is Glorya Stokes Telleson. This is the one that passed away just recently, Marilyn Astle Petersen. Sue Evans Naisbett,…let us see, where are you Suzie-Q? She has 7 been so much fun and kept our class together with wonderful formal dinners at her home. MF: She is darling. We had such a great time with her. HM: Oh here she is. MF: Great. Who else did we interview? We had Patricia Pilcher Layton. HM: Oh, Patty is right here. She was very tiny, but had a big personality. In high school she played piano in a dance band. A bunch of us nurses often gathered round the nurse's home piano while she played all the popular songs for us to sing. She accompanied some of us when we sang solos for various community events. She was my roommate longer than any of the others. MF: Tell me about some of the others in the beginning class photo. HM: Many of the students dropped out during the first year and a few the second year. One crazy thing that happened, probably toward the end of the first year, was that six of the nursing students went to Las Vegas one weekend and got married. Some married boys they had known for quite a while and others married new boyfriends from Hill Air Base. They broke the rules so all of them were expelled. What a tragedy that the rules were so stringent about marrying during training. MF: That is really sad. HM: Somewhat later on, two girls in my class, Glorya and Darlene Steffan Chapman were allowed to marry. Another student, Kathleen Milligan, who was older than most of us, was admitted to the school although she was already married. She became a wonderful nurse. MF: That was good. 8 HM: Here is a little booklet that contains the by-laws. It's fun to read it and realize how much nurse's training has changed. MF: That is interesting. I have never seen that. Sarah, have you ever seen that? SL: No I haven't. HM: By the time the first class of the two year Weber College Nursing School started in 1955, students could be married. The difference was that they didn't live in a nurse's home, and had summers off. They weren't allowed to staff the hospital like we were. I think it was difficult for them to gain sufficient experience to be fully qualified to take jobs as R.N.s. As three year diploma nurses, we gained a great deal of on-the-job training right from the beginning. MF: Sounds pretty hard. HM: The hospital depended on us. If we had a party or a dance or something, the hospital almost folded. They had to call off duty nurses to come and help. That is how much we were needed….and yet they used to tell us time and again how much we were costing the hospital. Yeah right! MF: You said that Patricia was your roommate? HM: She was the second. MF: Who was your first? HM: My first roommate was Maureen Hacking, here in the middle of the class picture. She came from England. She had a beautiful voice and was very smart. MF: In nursing? HM: Well…in everything. She came to Logan High School her junior year, so we got to be friends. She really didn’t need high school because she was ahead of us in 9 every subject. When we went to nursing school she didn't have to spend as much time on her homework as the rest of us did. She was a night owl, often visiting various nurse's rooms until very late. With shift work, there was usually someone awake to talk with. Routinely, about four AM, she would come into our room, turn the radio on and begin to study. Needless to say, neither of us got much sleep. Why she didn't seem sleepy the next morning, I never could understand. Eventually, Maureen and I traded roommates. Marilyn Astle became mine and Kay Bangarter became hers. Early in their second year, Kay and Maureen quit nursing school and moved to California. MF: Really? HM: I had letters from Maureen saying she finished nursing school there and eventually owned and managed a large nursing home. MF: That is good. Do you remember some of the doctors or part of the nursing staff? HM: Oh yes. I have pictures of a few of them here. About six months after I entered nursing school, I began working on the school newspaper. Before long I was the editor. Many times when my staff members went on rotations, I ended up doing much of the writing, layout, advertising alone. It was my job to see that the paper got printed and distributed. MF: You were it. HM: Here I have copies of some of the papers from 1946 to 1954. MF: Oh, good. HM: (Pointing out various newspaper pictures)...This is Mr. Knapp, who was the director of the hospital. This was Dr. Berdette, featured as Doctor of the Month. 10 Here is Dr. Zeman who was the pathologist. Dr. Caitlin was one we knew well because he treated anyone in our class who became ill. I wrote a story about Dr. Kelly. He had been in an accident and lost several fingers on his dominant hand. It was amazing to watch him in surgery operating as if he had no handicap. MF: Wow. HM: Here is a picture of Mrs. Seidner who was our Director of Nurses during our first year. This is Dr. Southwick. I interviewed and wrote quite a few of these feature articles. I seemed to have been the only one in my class, and maybe one of the few in nursing school, who had taken journalism in high school. During those two years, our Logan High teacher, Mrs. Schamber, made certain we learned all the basics. We wrote all kinds of articles including features, sports, and general interest. We were always expected to sell advertisements to pay for the paper. I had my own fashion column. These classes were hard but a lot of fun also. During my last two years in nursing school, I was the only student with a typewriter, because I was allowed to keep the brand new wide carriage machine in my room to use for the newspaper or for whatever else I wanted to write. My teachers often commented on how nice it was to be able to read the typed assignment papers I turned in. Alas, when I graduated, the typewriter was no longer mine! MF: That's the way it goes. HM: Here is a picture of Dr. Grant Way, an Ob/Gyn who was very popular with everybody. Here is Dr. Swindler. I will tell you a story about this article. He was an orthopedist who was one of our instructors. Most of us were scared of him 11 because he was very stern. When it came time to do this article, I called his wife and asked for some history and a picture of him. One day, before this newspaper was published, I was working on the surgical floor. As I went to exit the ward via the swinging door, I nearly ran into him. He almost got an unexpected bath because I was carrying a large basin full of dirty bath water. As I tremblingly apologized, he very gruffly asked if I was Miss Kohler. “What is this I hear; that you called my wife and got pictures and information about my life? I'm not sure I approve of that!”...still the water is sloshing around in my shaking arms... Suddenly, he starts laughing and says, “Well, make sure it is a good article!” Boy, oh, boy, did I work hard on that one! MF: Good story. HM: Years later, just before my L.D.S. Mission to Argentina and Chile, I consulted Dr Swindler about my back problems. This time he was very nice...apparently mellowed with the years! Dr. Grua and Dr. Hales were other doctors that we liked a lot; they were such wonderful teachers. MF: That is good. What was a typical day like at the hospital? How would you start out your day? HM: We started working three to eleven shifts; eight hour shifts. We all felt that was wonderful because we had heard about these horrible twelve hour shifts that nurses used to work. Now, for the last twenty years, I have worked twelve hour shifts at the University of Utah! During our first year we often went to classes such as physiology and anatomy or nursing arts held in the nurse's home. Then 12 we worked in the hospital for a few hours before returning to class. We really had to learn to hustle to get everything done. One day I went to find Patty Pilcher Layton so we could walk to class together. I found her standing on a stool at the bedside of a woman who weighed almost five hundred pounds. Patty was almost in tears lamenting that she had to get this lady bathed before class time. I got others, including Curg Peterson to help. Piece by piece we managed to wash the lady's multiple skin folds and change her bedding. Alone, Patty would probably still be there! MF: Good story. MF: Do you remember any traditions at the hospital during the holidays? HM: One tradition I remember well was the Kangaroo Court conducted by the senior nurses to “try” the “probies” or first year students. For the “courts” we were to dress in pajamas. The year I was a “probie”, several of my classmates and I received penalties for “not bowing to seniors often enough.” We were paraded from the Nurses Home into the hospital foyer at the beginning of the seven p.m. visiting hour. We had peeled, raw onions hung on strings around our necks. My captor told me to take a bite of the onion, which I obediently did. Within seconds I was throwing up. Great way to start a nursing career! On returning to the Nurse's Home, we were treated to some little blue pills. The next morning we “probies” discovered that our urine was a pretty blue color. Poor Curg who was alone in his hospital apartment came to class in a panic. “Have you guys noticed anything different when you go to the bathroom?” “I don't know what is wrong with me.” Being without roommates at a time like that was really traumatic for him. 13 We had some wonderful Halloween parties, complete with spook alleys for the whole school. Our Junior Proms were great, with live bands and boys we invited. Here is a picture of Alta Chugg Burton, Amy Fukuda Stevens, and me, working on the event held during our Junior year. MF: That is good. HM: I would like to recall an incident that happened to my classmate, Mary Lou Heath and me, not too long after we received our nurse's caps in the beautiful lamp-lit ceremony honoring us for having made it through our first six months as “Probies”. Mary Lou was one of the girls who was expelled when she got married during our first year. One night we went to work on Second Medical, a unit with at least thirty-five patients. It sometimes served as an acute psychiatric unit where patients would be in restraints. Ours was an eleven to seven shift. We found out that we were the only nurses scheduled. We did not even have a nurse's aide. We were responsible for preparing and giving numerous penicillin/streptomycin intramuscular injections every four hours. Syringes had to be cleaned and sent to central supply to be sterilized for the next round of shots. We gave lots of pain meds, often morphine by injection. We would take a tiny tablet out of a little pill bottle, place it in a syringe and draw up sterile water to dissolve it for the subcutaneous injection. Lots of work! All treatments and patient care was our job. Three times during the night, we called for the supervisor to come and help us with blood transfusions and one of the many IVs that were running. The next morning while we were folding the laundry for the day shift, we congratulated ourselves that at least nobody died that night! 14 MF: That is a lot of responsibility for two young students. HM: Yes, it scares me now to consider all we were expected to do, sometimes with very little instruction. One outstanding incident to illustrate the above point occurred during my second year of training when I was supposed to work on Labor and Delivery. A call from the supervisor reassigned me to the Pediatric Unit. Although I reminded her that the only time I had been there was when we toured the hospital the first week of nursing school, she assured me that I could handle the work. “Peds” was located on the fifth floor of the hospital in a small, cramped space. I was the nurse in charge with the help of a well-trained aide. We had between fifteen and twenty patients, one a burn victim in full body cast. Somehow I managed the completely foreign pediatric medication doses. Lots of divine help on that one. In the morning we had to admit and prepare six children for tonsil and adenoid surgery. The whole shift brought one surprise after another. I was still there three hours after the end of the shift...charting...the abbreviated way we did it at that time. MF: It was a long, difficult process to work through assignments like that. HM: It was. MF: Do you still have the glass syringes we heard you were given to practice with? Also, did you have to help sharpen needles for patients? HM: Yes we did. Most needles would be sharpened in central supply, but we still had sharpening stones to use if we found a particularly dull needle before it was sent for sterilization. I still have my little glass practice syringe and several needles. 15 MF: Boy, the processes have changed, haven't they. HM: I’ll say. MF: What is something you would do if you had a night off? If you had time to spend with your friends or your roommate, what would you do? HM: A lot of the girls dated guys from Hill Field. I dated several but I found that a lot of them weren’t people I wanted to date. There was a really sweet young man that I did date named Wagner. Our first date was to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake. I lost track of him when he was transferred to Alaska. MF: That is the way it goes sometimes. HM: As nurses, we did a lot of fun things. In the summer we would thumb rides with anybody that would take us up to Pineview Dam. A lot of us dated college kids and each other’s brothers, cousins, friends. Since the kitchen and dining room in the Nurse's Home were reserved for the House Mothers use, we went to other people's houses to make the occasional batch of candy. Our meals were always in the hospital cafeteria. Suntanning on the nurse's home roof was fun although the burns were not. We got into mischief too. A couple of times one girl named Othei Packard, got her boyfriend to loan us his awful car that had no doors or brakes. She drove. At the corners, she would scream for us to jump out and stop the car. Amazingly, no one was hurt. If she hadn't quit nursing school, I can't imagine the degree of trouble we would have been in! She was a delightful risk-taker. Another girl who often pulled pranks was Kathleen Campball. The house mothers caught her roller skating in the halls of the nurses’ home. On one occasion she scared everyone 16 by igniting firecrackers in an upper hall door keyhole. We loved “Cam”. Sadly enough, since she joked so much, we never took seriously her complaints of feeling very tired and even faint when she climbed stairs. Shortly after graduation, she died of coronary heart disease. MF: Oh really? HM: Othei and Cam were usually the ringleaders, but lots of us went along with the mischief even though our consciences bothered us a bit. One of the nights we rode in the “car without brakes”, Cam had filched a huge tray of cookies from the cafeteria kitchen. No one turned down the delicious treats. What amazed us was that no one was caught. MF: We heard about the stolen cookies. HM: Did they tell you about the night we went out to North Ogden in a boyfriend's car? It was a pitch black night when we went into someone's cherry orchard without flashlights. Just feeling around, we found the most wonderful Bing cherries and ate a lot of them. My conscience really pricks when I consider that probably those cherries were meant to be displayed in the Fair which was to be held the next day. If our nursing supervisors had learned of that rotten prank, there would have probably been far fewer nurses graduating in our class. It is amazing what a person will do in a group that he/she would never consider doing alone. MF: That is a good story. At that time, were you required to attend church or was it a choice? 17 HM: Church attendance was a choice. The Dee Hospital belonged to the L.D.S. Church at that time. Once in awhile they would present a religious service in the Nurse's Home. MF: Like a devotional? HM: Yes, that's a good description of the meetings. As time passed, those meetings became less frequent and finally stopped. We began feeling in our second year that something was changing. We didn’t know for a long time that plans were underway to close our school in favor of the two year Weber College Nursing School. Our school was within the boundaries of the L.D.S. Mount Ogden Ward. The majority of girls were L.D.S. so we attended church functions there or in the home wards of those who lived in Ogden. We would go wherever the best activities and the most boys were. It is easy to understand why we weren't much liked by the Mount Ogden Ward girls! When our rotating shifts allowed us to, a few of us attended Weber College Institute. It was too easy to let Church activity take a back seat to work. MF: How many days a week did you work? HM: We worked three to four eight hour shifts a week depending on how many classes we had. One of the most used schedules was what we called the “triple back”. This meant you worked eight hours eleven at night to seven in the morning. Then you worked again at three in the afternoon until eleven at night. Next, you would do a day shift from seven am until three pm. Our bio-rhythms took a beating, but since everyone was expected to do it, we just put up with the misery. During our second and third years, we worked a lot of different shifts. It 18 was hard to get enough sleep because we always had work related horror stories to relate to anyone congregated in the room of a nurse whose door was open...any time of the day or night. Sharing experiences was so much fun, educational, and so supportive. We had our own internal social work department! MF: The two year Weber classes didn’t have that. So what a great legacy you have kept. You still have your luncheons and get together with your classmates. HM: It is really wonderful. MF: Tell us a little bit about graduation? Where was it held? HM: It was held at the Mt. Ogden Ward Chapel on September 10, 1954, at eight o'clock. This is our graduation picture. It was the class of ’54 affiliated with Weber College and the University of Utah. Dr. Homer Rich offered the invocation. Dr. Grua gave a talk and Ruth Brown, one of our favorite teachers, did the “Presentation of the Graduates”. Diplomas were awarded by Kenneth Knapp, Hospital Administrator. Verle Lesnan, Director of Nursing handed out souvenir pens. The announcement program included names of the Board of Trustees: Bishop Thorpe B. Isaacson, President; Lawrence T. Dee, Vice President; and Maude Dee Porter, Treasurer. Also listed were Thomas O. Smith, Wm. Arthur Budge, George H. Holt, and Wm. J Critchlow, Jr. Being affiliated with the University of Utah as noted on the program announcement was a big advantage to us. MF: You were getting university credit so you could get your bachelors, right? HM: True. I thought it wise to go on and get my BS in Nursing. 19 MF: That is a great thing. While you were in training did you receive any pay? Do you remember? HM: Only if we worked extra shifts on weekends or holidays. The first few weeks of nursing school, I managed to go home to Logan at least every two weeks. As we got busier and had more varied shifts, that interval became approximately every five weeks. I still had my Mama, Katie, and brother, Leon at home. While I was in my second year of training, my mom and dad were divorced, so I didn't see him anymore. One of the extra paid jobs that we began doing during our second year of nursing school was to give “special nursing care” to very sick, injured, or post surgical patients. We performed ICU duties since ICUs had not yet been developed. Some of the cases were horrendous, such as the one that I was assigned one night. A lady had just been admitted after having had both legs accidently amputated when she crawled under a train to get across the tracks in a hurry. After the initial shock, I was kept busy trying to keep her blood pressure up with an adjustable Levofed drip for which I had had no training. “Just increase the rate if the BP drops,” said the doctor. Who had time to be scared? MF: It was just what you did, there was no other choice. HM: Right. Lots of our regular shifts or extra shifts were at night because they were always harder to cover. One of the things that I did during my second and third years of training was to work at the Logan Budge Hospital when I went home on a weekend or holiday. Since the student nurses from that hospital had been transferred to the 20 Dee after it closed, help was always in short supply. They hired me and gave me assignments as though I was an RN. I usually worked on the Maternity ward or in the Nursery. One night when I arrived at work, the charge nurse said, “Well, you have a lot of babies to care for in the nursery tonight and you also have to help the nurse assistant with mothers on the maternity ward. By the way, this preemie will also need lots of attention. You will also need to find time to make formula and here is the recipe!” Needless to say, it was a nightmare of a shift. The preemie, plus the other babies kept me running. I had to look everywhere for a urine catheterization set to relieve a mama (high school friend of mine) who was about to burst her bladder. (I eventually found one in an unlikely place on the top shelf of a cupboard, after even the supervisor couldn't find one). When I finally found time to make formula, I ruined the first batch with way too much water. I dumped the whole thing and started again, this time making it right. I was so afraid the glass bottles would break during sterilization while I had to be out of the room caring for the mothers. Finally, daytime came. I thanked my Heavenly Father that I had found the much needed cath set, that no one had been injured or died, and that the much needed formula was prepared! MF: That was great! HM: Yes, it certainly was. MF: After you graduated what did you do, did you stay with the Dee? HM: During our last three months we could choose where we wanted to work. I had enjoyed my six week rotation at the Tuberculosis Sanatorium in North Ogden, but even more, I liked my three month rotation at the State Mental Hospital in Provo, 21 Utah. Therefore, I chose to work on the plush new Psychiatric Ward at the Dee Hospital located on the fourth floor of the East wing. The head nurse, Sylvia McClure, was a lady from New York who ran a tight ship. There were twentythree patients on the unit when I started. Upon graduation I was offered a permanent job on a rotating shift at $225.00 monthly. It was one of the highest paying jobs in the hospital. I worked there for nine months while I finished some pre-requisite classes at the new Weber College campus on Harrison where there were four buildings. I took Humanities and English there and beginner swimming at the old Weber Gym. Amy Fukuda Stevens, my classmate and new roommate took the swimming class with me. It was the only one we could fit into our schedule. Amy and I became the demonstrators because she had swum all her life in Hawaii and I had a lifesaving certificate from Logan High. During the time I worked at the Dee a psychiatric instructor was needed for the new two year Weber College Nursing students who did not have the option of affiliating with the State Hospital. The Weber College nursing director asked me to be their psychiatric instructor. I looked at her and said, “My gosh I have had only three months at the State Hospital and a few months here at the Dee and you want me to be their instructor?” She said, “Well, we don’t have anyone else.” They knew I liked psych and would work hard at it. “Work hard” is the right word because these students hadn't a clue what psychiatry was about. Some had good work ethics, but others had a very hard time realizing how critical patient care was when we were administering electric shock treatments to manicdepressive patients and high dose insulin therapy daily to patients with 22 schizophrenia. One day, after I had assigned the students to each watch two patients undergoing insulin therapy, I found one of the students curled up on the couch in the living room preparing for her debating class. I almost lost it. “What do you think you are doing?” “You should be taking vitals and doing pupil checks every fifteen minutes on those patients as they are going into comas.” “If you want to remain in nursing school, I suggest you put your books away and get back to your nursing assignment.” She seemed entirely oblivious of her nursing priorities until I reprimanded her. MF: Especially if she did something serious like that. HM: Yes. The two year program was so new and had so many bugs to be worked out. It was a tremendous change for the Dee Hospital when there were no longer three year students to depend on for shift coverage. The two year students were not allowed to handle assignments like we had. I had several groups of new nursing students, each one becoming a little better than the last. By the time I left the Dee, our psychiatric patient census had dropped very low because, for the first time, treatments included such anti-psychotic medications as Thorazine and Stelazine. Many patients were able to function reasonably well in their homes. What a paradigm change took place in psychiatric care at that time. MF: That is good. So what did you do after you taught those students? HM: In January of l956, I moved to Salt Lake City and enrolled at the University of Utah. I also worked part time at the L.D.S. Hospital. Although I lived a block from the Holy Cross Hospital, but had no experience working in a Catholic setting, (and I was afraid I would have to baptize babies), I took the more distant job. 23 Years later I worked at two Catholic Hospitals and was nurse in a Catholic boy’s high school. I learned to love working in Catholic facilities. My earlier fear was due to lack of knowledge. At L.D.S., I worked the Float Pool, sometimes on the orthopedic industrial ward where I endured much teasing by men who were bored to tears with the lengthy stays and afraid their injuries would prevent them returning to work. The other place I often worked, was recovery room where I was usually the only R.N. I never did have any nurse assistants. Narcotics were kept in a locked drawer. At times I had unexpected visits from a handsome orderly who flirted and offered me rides home. Thank goodness, I never accepted because I found out he was married, addicted to drugs, and came to “recovery” because he knew I worked alone. I suppose he hoped I would fall in love with him and supply his habit, or perhaps leave the keys where he could use them to sneak drugs. During the huge polio epidemic in 1956, L.D.S. Hospital was informed that they either had to take those patients or send nurses to County Hospital on State and 21st South. As a volunteer, I worked at “County” for three months caring for critically ill patients in “iron lungs” or on “rocking beds.” What a tragic time. Sometimes a patient would be admitted one day and dead the next. If an occasional electrical outage occurred, we pulled the iron lungs together and manually pumped two at a time until back-up power came on. I learned to love those struggling patients and was very grateful I didn't succumb to the illness myself. 24 At the University, my hardest subject by far was physics. Our class had approximately one hundred and twenty students. There was little personal communication with the teacher in an auditorium so huge that seeing the writing on the blackboard was difficult. I began getting “Ds” on my weekly tests. I was devastated, fearing failure would prevent me from receiving my Bachelor of Nursing Degree. I asked a friend who was a physics major for help. He was so advanced that I couldn't comprehend what he was trying to teach me. Finally, I made the decision to quit working at L.D.S. Hospital on Thursdays so I could spend all that day each week preparing for the Friday physics tests. Each Thursday morning, I got up early and made myself study only physics until late at night. It was a struggle, but the self-discipline worked. I began getting much better grades on the tests because I was finally understanding and enjoying what I was learning. By the end of the quarter, I received an “A” grade in the class. I was told it was one of only three given that quarter. I have used that example of determination to succeed with my children when they have complained that a class or a job was too hard. MF: Did you know any members of the Dee family? HM: I once met Lawrence Dee, who was one of the hospital trustees. Like I said earlier, some of them came to the nursing school ceremonies such as graduations. I didn't know any of them personally, but I surely am grateful for the Dee family and those who supported the hospital and nursing school so we could be educated and begin our life's careers. MF: Are you still working at the University? 25 HM: Yes, I work on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit and plan to retire sometime... After I received my BS Degree in Nursing in 1957, I worked as a Public Health and School Nurse for all of South Cache County. My cousin, Rachael Ann Wursten Winslow, worked in North Cache County, so we had a great time sharing responsibilities. She had always been someone I looked up to as a fine nurse. I learned a lot from her. After a year and one half, I went on an LDS Church Mission to Argentina and Chile. When I came back, I worked several months in my former Cache County job before being married to J. Ross Mortensen, a returned missionary from the Argentina and Chile Mission, originally from Arizona and Texas. We moved to Provo so Ross could finish school. I worked full time at the Utah State Hospital where I saw that immense changes had taken place since my student days. A patient government had been formed and there were open-door policies on some units. When Ross graduated in 1960, we moved to Riverside, California. Just before that, we had the first of our nine children. When our second child was born a year later in the Riverside Hospital, I had a lovely surprise as Marie Manning Donaldson, RN, my nursing school teacher from Ogden, walked in with several of her student nurses. I worked in hospitals and did public health in several places where we lived until Ross quit his pharmaceutical sales jobs and began Dental School at the University of California in San Francisco. We had three children when he started and five when he finished, four years later. During those years I worked full time for the City and County of San Francisco as a School and Public Health 26 Nurse. Getting a job was difficult because a person had to first belong to Civil Service. In order to belong to that group, which governed all of San Francisco, a person had to have a job. As I sat in the office of the Assistant Director of Nurses, I was lamenting the situation. She, Hope Eckland, leaned over to me and said, “Well, anybody with a name like “Hope” deserves a job, you are hired.” MF: Oh good. HM: That was the first of several times when I obtained a job from a nurse with my same given name. The years in San Francisco were difficult times for everyone, including nurses. It was the “Hippy” and the “Black Power” era. The second two years, my district included a big chunk of the infamous “Haight-Ashbury District” as well as the “Black District', where many of the militant black leaders were congregated. We were called upon to give nursing care unlike anything any of us had ever done before. The job was sometimes dangerous, but generally very rewarding. I learned to love many different types of people. School nursing became a favorite part of my job. When Ross graduated, we moved to Palmdale, California. Even with the debts we incurred during school, and promises of much larger ones with setting up a dental practice, I was so tired of the nursing hassle that I determined never again to be employed. However, during the years we spent raising our large family in Palmdale, Lancaster and Fresno, I willingly volunteered as a nurse at schools, hospitals, in county emergency health, and sometimes as an assistant in the dental office. My time was filled with Church callings, scouting, parent club, sports, and attempting to keep my family well. Surprisingly, I found that sometimes I longed to be a “real nurse.” 27 When Ross retired in 1988 with back problems, I repented my “no job” decision and returned to the workforce. My first year was as a Migrant School Nurse in Fresno County, helping guard the health of the children whose parents move from place to place harvesting the crops. It was a huge, difficult job, but enjoyable because I was able to speak Spanish every day and get to know so many new Hispanic and Asian families. I found my Mission experience in South America very valuable. I later worked in a psychiatric hospital until the census went down. Inasmuch as public health and especially school nursing jobs were being cut big time, it appeared that my best chance at keeping permanent work was to apply at a local hospital. I took a two week nursing refresher course and applied at St. Agnes in Fresno where I had done some volunteer work. This was the second time my name helped me get a job. The recruiting nurse's name was Hope Riley. She was incredulous that I wanted to start working in a busy general hospital at age fifty-six. She said, “Okay, us “Hopes” have to stick together. I will hire you if you will work full time for a whole year, on any shift and anywhere in the hospital. I knew right away that meant lots of nights on the medical unit. The perk was that she would enter me into the “New Graduate Internship Class” and assign me a nurse preceptor for five whole months. This person would work every shift with me. We would initially take patients together and then begin to take our own assignments with her available as a mentor. How could I pass up that type of opportunity? Little did I know the terror I was about to encounter, and the amount of “humble pie” I would have to eat. Most new graduates were the ages of my younger children. I took every class I could 28 manage on my days/nights off to become anywhere near competent. Nursing had changed so much since I had worked in a hospital. Even trips to the supply or medication carts were mind boggling. Unfamiliar equipment and medications were everywhere. I am certain I nearly drove Kim, my lovely, competent, twentysix year old preceptor crazy. When I resorted to tears of frustration, she would put her arms around me and say, “Oh, Hopers (her name for me), you can do it.” Without her continuous prodding as well as her comforting support, I simply could not have done the job. As suspected, I worked mostly nights on the Medical Unit. Besides medical patients, I learned to care for a great many AIDS/HIV patients at a time when they were usually tremendously sick, hospitalized, and receiving numerous medications. The other opportunity I had, was to care for many Oncology patients with their need for radiation and chemotherapy. After two years, my husband and I moved to Salt Lake to help with his aging mother. The University of Utah Hospital needed Oncology Nurses, so I was hired immediately by Nurse Manager, Diane Kiuhara. Little did she or I realize the vast amount I still needed to learn to enable me to carry my load in a large teaching hospital. A new Bone Marrow Transplant Unit adjacent to the Oncology Unit had just been opened up. For a while nurses floated back and forth, but when the units were divided, I chose to stay with Bone Marrow (Now called Blood and Marrow Transplant). MF: That is what you still do? HM: Yes. Bone Marrow patients usually have lengthy stays, so workers become well acquainted with them and their families, with plenty of psycho logic issues 29 available to challenge a former psychiatric nurse. Also, discharge issues call upon my public health experience. The unit has been a good fit for me. I have also really enjoyed helping train student nurses from several hospitals and new nurses in the innovative Oncology Internship Program set up to train new graduates and improve nurse retention. This program provides eighteen weeks of class instruction as well as practical inpatient and outpatient oncology nursing experience at Huntsman Cancer Hospital. It has been a great opportunity to share my nursing knowledge and experience with many wonderful nurses. What I have learned from them has hopefully made me a better nurse. I will have been at the University seventeen years this coming September. The BMT Outpatient Clinic has been housed at Huntsman for several years, but our crowded BMT Inpatient Unit is still in the University Hospital. This situation is due in part to hospital politics, but also to the huge expense that will be required to install a special air filtration system. Plans are to have a new Huntsman BMT wing completed within three years. It will be a welcome move since we have been under the Huntsman “patient care umbrella” for quite some time. MF: That is good. How do you think nursing has changed over the years? HM: The change is a big one from the three or four year diploma programs which required nurses to live in a nurse's home and be a big part of the non-paid nursing staff. The beginning of the two year college-based schools for nurses meant a total change in how hospitals did their staffing. The majority of nursing schools now are college or university related. There is heavy emphasis on book learning, and much less on practical training than was true of the diploma nursing 30 programs. Presently, a student nurse cannot give a medication or administer a treatment without the oversight of a licensed provider. MF: That is a tremendous change. HM: Nurses’ attitudes have changed. Gone are the years when they unquestioningly followed orders, held doors or arose when a doctor entered the room. Nurses have become such a vocal, integral part of the health care team. During our time in San Francisco, I participated in one of the first nursing strikes. As a result of that strike, my wages doubled. Can you imagine today's nurses, like some of my then San Francisco colleagues, saying of the wage increase, “I don't think I deserve it!” I told my co-workers I would be very happy to relieve them of their extra money so I could use it for my needy family! Now many nurses fume at low wages, shift work, patient ratios, burn-out, etc., etc., etc. Nurses have become increasingly more politically involved. The San Francisco nurses in the mid 1960's became very involved with city and county government. I had the privilege of representing our particular Health Department District at negotiation meetings with government and union representatives. I have enjoyed being part of the national and local Oncology Nursing Society. One of its focuses is on how national and local government affects health care. The opportunity for nurses to choose any number of specialties is one of the significant changes. Development of ICU departments must have been one of the reasons. Changes in medicine have required nurses to have different kinds of responsibilities, many of which were once the realm of the doctor only. Head- totoe assessments and the needs indicated have changed the way nursing care is 31 managed. Nurses can work several jobs and obtain any educational degree desired. MF: How nurses document has changed significantly. HM: Absolutely. For years charting could be done with a few sentences unless something significant was happening to a patient. It wasn't rare to see an end of shift entry in a patient's chart read, “Good night.” or “Good day.” When I worked in Fresno, I was asked to become one of the computer trainers. I responded that I didn't even know how to turn on the machine. The nurse informatics specialist said, “That's why you should do it, because without the training, you never will be able to keep up.” I got permission to review the classroom material in the Director of Nurse's office which was the only place where there was a computerized practice module. I would sometimes stay twelve hours. When time came to teach my co-workers, I was terrified, until I realized that the training had paid off and I knew something they didn't. That was twenty years ago, when the documentation programs were limited. Three years ago, the University Hospitals and Clinics embarked on the “Cerner Care Transformation” computer adventure. This time I volunteered to become one of the unit “superuser” trainers, not because I was a computer expert, but because I knew I would be offered a great amount of training. So it was! Many times however, I was embarrassed with my lack of competency, especially when I found one of the tasks was to be a programmer, or more specifically, a corrector of all types of entries which would one day be used for documentation and order entry. Often, especially when the programs went live, I 32 was ready to throw all computers out the nearest window. I longed to return to written orders and documentation even with all the inherent deficiencies. Now, I am tremendously grateful for what I have learned and for the help so many wonderful nurses and computer technologists have given me. I know of a number of nurses who quit when they learned that the transition to computers was coming. One nurse in my beginning class started a training blog to document our computer experiences. When she asked me what my computer background was, I laughed, and reminded her that back in the early 1940's when I was eight we were still using metal dip pens and ink wells. I surely remember “Samuel M.” in the desk behind me delighting in dipping my long blond braids in his ink well! MF: Wow, things have really changed in nursing. HM: Despite so much change, I have never been sorry I embarked upon a nursing career. To think of retiring makes me sad because I have had such wonderful experiences with patients, families and colleagues. The continuous educational opportunities have been tremendous. What could beat that in one's “latter years”? I actually will plan to retire by 2010. I will be seventy-six years old by then. MF: We appreciate you letting us come and visit with you. HM: You are very welcome. This has been a great way to record history that could have easily become lost. 33