Oral History Program Lois Heap Murray Interviewed by Marci Farr 28 July 2008 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Lois Heap Murray Interviewed by Marci Farr 28 July 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: Lois Heap Murray, an oral history by Marci Farr, 28 July 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Lois Heap Murray Application Photo September 1942 Graduation Photo Class of 1947 Lois Heap Murray September 10, 2008 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Lois Heap Murray. It was conducted July 28, 2008 and concerns her recollections and experiences with the Dee School of Nursing. The interviewer is Marci Farr, and Lamoy Murray was also present. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing Lois Heap Murray for the Dee School of Nursing. She graduated in 1947. It is July 28, 2008. We are interviewing Lois at her home in Ogden. Could you tell us a little bit about your early life, your education, your family, and where you went to school? LHM: I finished high school. My folks all lived in Jerome. My mother was on her third marriage. My dad lived in Ogden. I loved Ogden. They had a presentation at school before we graduated which talked about nurses and the qualifications to be accepted. I thought that would be a really good idea. I signed up for it. There were two hospitals, one was the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake and the other one was the Dee Hospital in Ogden. Of course, I knew where that was. We had to write a letter why we wanted to enter the nursing program. The Dee Hospital accepted me which made me happy because that is exactly where I wanted to be. MF: So that is what made your decision. LHM: Yes. I got a job when I got out of high school in Twin Falls. People who say they cannot find a job are wrong. If you put your mind to it you can do anything. I finally went to the biggest department store and said, “I will do anything and you do not have to pay me this month.” They took me. After a week they kept me. I made eighteen dollars a week. It was almost impossible to live on that. I had 1 this little apartment, paid seven dollars a month. I hardly had anything to eat. You worked long shifts, you did not get off for lunch, and you also worked Saturdays. But that was easy compared to what nursing was. MF: I am sure. What was your impression when you first came to nurses’ training? LHM: I thought it was very well run. This was in 1943 and the war started in 1941. I thought it was very well set up. They were very strict with us. MF: You had a curfew, correct? LHM: It was at ten o’clock. MF: You could not sneak out after? LHM: No, you could not get out. The lights had to be off too. I learned how to put up my hair in the dark because I had never done that before. You know, those little pin curls you did and everything? Well you have to remember, the war was on and you could hardly buy bobby pins. MF: And nylons too. LHM: I have to tell you about the nylons. Sometimes L. R. Samuels, a department store down in Ogden, would hide a few for us. We would go in there and we did not have any money or anything. The owner would say, “You girls have got to have these.” We had to wear hose. If we could not get the white hose, the white nylons, which was very rare, and we had to mend them all, if we could not get those we could buy the Lyle stock which all cotton. The silk, which were terrible, they turned yellow and they pulled on you. You had to wear a girdle, you could not wear a guarder belt and wear hose all the time. Of course, you had a wear a bra too. 2 MF: You had some of your classes at Weber College? Did you walk down there or did you have most of them at the hospital? LHM: No, most at Weber College we walked down there. When we had association with the University of Utah, then the instructors came to the hospital. All the people who finished graduation spent three months on campus. I went back to Weber State and got all my other stuff in. MF: With the instruction at the hospital, do you remember who taught your classes? LHM: I do not remember. MF: Did you have nurses, doctors and nurses both? LHM: Yes. Our psychology, they were not nurses, the zoology, and all the labs, the chemistry; those were all the regular teachers. MF: Who were some of your classmates that you went to school with? You had roommates when you lived in the nurses’ home. Tell me about some of those and also who was your housemother? Do you remember who they were? LHM: It has been so long ago I have not even thought about them. I know somebody mentioned Mrs. Manning. MF: Yes. LHM: I guess she is still alive. MF: Really? Was she was the housemother? LHM: She kind of watched over us, no not a housemother just kind of helped the others practice down. We did have a housemother and she was quite strict. I can only imagine with a whole bunch of young women. They only had one phone there and you had to be on phone duty and so forth. 3 MF: Tell us what a typical day was like when you were at the hospital on duty. What were your responsibilities? LHM: If you had the day shift you had to be in chapel at six thirty. You had to go right over to the hospital. You worked seven to eleven. Then you got off for lunch and study. Then you had classes from one to four. At four thirty you had to be back there and you work until seven o’clock. It was a long, long day. MF: That would be a long day. LHM: Supposedly you are supposed to study when you were not caring for patients. I have a little story to tell you. I was a big coffee drinker. All my family drinks loads and loads of coffee. You were not allowed any coffee there. MF: Really? LHM: They had it for the patients but we could not even steal any. We could not get any. We only made fifteen dollars a month. That does not work out to very much money because the shoes were so terrible. They were out of cardboard and stuff. You wore them out really fast. I would fall asleep in class and get called in. I just needed a pick me up. They had a little confectionery store. It was north of the hospital right across the street. MF: Catherine and ELHMer Hogge’s store correct? LHM: Yes, I met a fellow over there and thought he was a little forward and I would not go out with him. He kept calling me on the phone. He called me on the phone for three weeks before I went out with him. To make this a little bit short, this story, he became my husband later on. 4 We opened up Murray’s Drug Store, and had that for thirty-five years. It was just a confectionery store. A lot of the nurses would come over to eat and so forth. I used to make this, they call it sloppy joes now, but I called it barbecued beef. They were wild about it. And lemon pie and so forth. MF: Did you buy that from the Hogges’? LHM: No we rented it from them. We rented the house next door too. They were very good landlords. You knew, you would think, just shaking your hands. We did not have the entire thing drawn up and all that. MF: Just by your word? LHM: That is how things used to be. MF: We wish it was that way now. What was your favorite floor to work on? LHM: Your last six months you could say where you wanted to go in the hospital. I was crazy about surgery and loved the emergency room. I have a hard time when I see an ambulance go by. I want to follow it. MF: Ambulance chaser. LHM: Oh I know. MF: So that is was your choice? LHM: Yes. MF: Tell me about P.M. care. LHM: I know everybody got back rubs that wanted them. You have A.M. and P.M. You would not be giving them baths then. The A.M. care you would give them the bath and so forth. 5 MF: What did you do if you had a night off or if you had a weekend pass? What did you do if you were not working? LHM: There were no such thing as a weekend pass. We only had a night off during the week since we worked six days a week. We had one week off the entire year. Most of us were so poor we could not go anywhere anyway. One thing we did, was wear our uniforms, go down to the Berthana and roller skate. There were a lot of service men and they treated you a lot better. They would not try to get smart or anything. We always wore our uniform for safety. They were really ugly uniforms. I never had a picture taken of me but I noticed this last funeral I went to, she had her picture taken and those ugly hats, it was that ugly green. They were simply terrible. MF: Were there any traditions at the Dee Hospital that you remember? LHM: No we had our own school song and we had very little time off. There was a shortage of men if they were up at the dance or something. Usually you could not find a date to go anywhere with them. MF: Were you required, at that time, to attend church? LHM: No we did not but we went to different churches. I was not LDS. A lot of my roommates were, I think only a couple were not LDS. Most people went there because they were LDS. We went to Holy Rollers one time. It was really kind of exciting. We were jumping up and down and everything. MF: Do you remember much about your capping and pinning ceremony? LHM: No but it was certainly exciting because it was a long, hard draw. We had to take state boards. They were not going to let me because I was not twenty-one yet. 6 They had never had anybody that went through nurses training that was not twenty-one. I did not want to wait six months because you get a better salary when you are a registered nurse. We always did not think we did very well on the boards but we really did. It was two days and really hard. Since I worked in the surgical part I could nail that flat. It was all about vasectomies and we had never seen one. It was illegal in Utah. So I thought, “Why did they put this thing in there?” I have got to tell you one funny story. We had phone detail, we did not have it very often, but this guy called and he wanted to take a couple of nurses out to eat. He said, “It is not a romance thing or anything, it is not a date or anything.” They were a little bit older and wanted to have some company. They contracted this place to get steaks and if I could go out, and another girl, they would have a taxi pick us up. They would not be in the taxi, they would meet us at the restaurant and the taxi would come and take us back. I thought, “Well yes.” We were so deprived; the food was just awful at the hospital. MF: That is what I have heard. It was not very good. LHM: It was chicken ala surprise. I mean chicken; we had roast chicken on Sunday. That was not a surprise but the rest of it you wonder. We went out there and the fellows were really nice. There were four of them. We talked and laughed and we had the best time. They said they wanted female company but did not want to be stuck with some women that were walking the streets. Of course, we just gobbled those steaks down. We had the best time. But when we were about to leave I said, “What is all these things clear up there?” He said, “Well those are chevrons.” I said, “Yes I know but what does it mean? How long have you been 7 in the service?” “Yes,” he said, “one is every three years.” Hell he was older than my dad. MF: How many were in your class? LHM: We started off with thirty and ended up with ten. You had to have a B+ average. Plus work your tail off. A B+ average was tough. You look back and those were the good days. MF: You could not be married right? LHM: No you could not get married. You could not be engaged either. MF: They would kick you out right? LHM: Oh yes. School teachers, were the same way too. MF: Really? LHM: When I went to school, if the school teacher wanted to get married, she could not work after she was married. She had to be home. It was only during WWII that women got out into the work force like Rosie the Riveter. We got out and had jobs, before then women were not allowed to work. MF: That is interesting. I did not know that about teachers. LHM: This is my husband. He works at Weber State. He is a pharmacist. They have a pharmacy over there. Most people do not know about it. MF: The one that is in the Health Center? LHM: Yes. MF: Oh good. LHM: Honey? Oh I do not know if he can get away and talk to you. MF: Yes. 8 LHM: Honey? I have two people here I would like you to meet. MF: Hello. LM: What? LHM: They are from Weber State. MF: Hi. LM: Weber State? Where is that? LHM: Yes, they are interviewing me. LM: I used to go to Weber State. You used to go to Weber State too. LHM: When I went down it was on Jefferson. LM: You had nurses’ training at Weber State too. MF: Yes that is why we are interviewing her. LHM: I am on camera. LM: How come you are here? MF: We are doing a history for the Dee School of Nursing. LM: History in what? MF: We are doing the history of the Dee School of Nursing. So you are on tape now. LHM: Come over here honey if you want to get on tape. LM: What? LHM: Your kids are going to see this. Come over and get on tape. LM: What are you doing? Making a yearly book or something? MF: We are compiling the history of all the nurses that are still living. LM: You are what? LHM: Do not get in front of the camera. 9 LM: Okay I will sit over here. MF: It will be a good project. LHM: It will be, yes. MF: You mentioned you received about fifteen dollars a month correct? LHM: They took out a breakage fee on the thermometers. MF: Oh if you broke them. LHM: In surgery we did not have thermometers and we still got charged for them. MF: After graduation did you stay at the Dee Hospital? LHM: Yes I did. I worked for three years in surgery. Surgery was very interesting. I cannot get any of my grandkids or great grandkids. I am still working on them. I do not know why anybody would not want to be a nurse. MF: If that works for you that is a great profession to be in. LHM: Yes it is. MF: I think especially surgery too. LHM: No matter how many operations, when they first make that mid-line incision I would just quiver. We did not have the tests those days so we could find out really what was wrong. It was called exploratory. It was a big excitement, that first…I thought, “Are they going to flinch?” I did not know if they were really asleep. But they were. They would make that mid-line and I would just…I could not wait to see what was inside there. MF: Did you know any members of the Dee family at all? LHM: No. MF: Did you know Elizabeth Stewart? 10 LHM: No. MF: How long did you work in nursing? LHM: We moved to Santa Fe and I retired in, I guess, the end of 1949. Yes because I had a daughter that was born in January, 1950. I did not believe in other people raising your children. Nobody is better than you are. If you are a good mother then nobody is better. You could put your kids in daycare; you can do all that stuff, but nobody likes your kids as well as you do. MF: Exactly. LHM: My daughters have done the same thing as what I have done. They stayed home until their kids got old enough. MF: That is good. LHM: It is a decision I made and I breast fed all of them. Even when it was not popular. I could not understand why people had all these kids and they want to work all of the time. MF: Exactly. LHM: What is the point? MF: Exactly. It is true. You need to be responsible. LHM: You could teach your kids so much. MF: Exactly. Plus they need you and you realize that is important. LHM: I will tell you a little story. MF: Tell us some stories. LHM: I was working in the emergency room and we had a really busy night. The interns were worked to death. You thought we were worked to death? They 11 were worked to death. They had to get up all hours of the night. About four o’clock in the morning, I worked the seven to seven shift, they brought this guy in. He was really, really drunk. He had a cut above his lip, a long cut. The highway patrol brought him in. I said, “You know, I would hate to wake up that intern. Would you like to be my nurse and help me? I will sew this guy up.” He said, “You bet!” It is not like with a needle and thread you can grab them and everything, it is slippery. It was a lot harder than it looked. You had to know how to do it. I got through with a pretty nice job. I left instructions. He was to find his family doctor and have his stitches removed in a few days. The intern I had to call in at six thirty in the morning that morning and I said, “I sewed up one of your patients. I did not want to wake you.” He said, he looked kind of surprised and said, “I sure thank you. I was so tired.” MF: It probably turned out wonderful. We appreciate you letting us come and visit with you Lois. LHM: I appreciate it too. 12