Oral History Program Darlene Armstrong Allen Interviewed by Marci Farr 19 August 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Darlene Armstrong Allen Interviewed by Marci Farr 19 August 2010 Copyright © 2010 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The St. Benedict’s School of Nursing was founded in 1947 by the Sisters of Mount Benedict. The school operated from April 1947 to 1968. Over the forty-one year period, the school had 605 students and 357 graduates. In 1966, the program became the basis for Weber State College’s Practical Nursing Program. This oral history project was created to capture the memories of the graduates and to add to the history of nursing education in Ogden. The interviews focus on their training, religion, and experiences working with doctors, nurses, nuns, and patients at St. Benedict’s Hospital. This project received funding from the Utah Humanities Council and the Utah Division of State History. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management Special Collections All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Darlene Armstrong Allen, an oral history by Marci Farr, 19 August 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Darlene Armstrong Allen Graduation Photo Class of 1962 Darlene Armstrong Allen August 19, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Darlene Armstrong Allen, conducted by Marci Farr and Sarah Langsdon, on August 19, 2010. In this interview, Darlene discusses her recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. Marjorie Porter was also present during the interview. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing Darlene Armstrong Allen. She graduated from St. Benedict’s School of Nursing in 1962. We are interviewing her at the Pineview Rehab Center in Ogden, Utah. Will you just tell us a little bit about your early life, your family, and where you were raised? DA: I was raised in Ogden and I was the oldest child. I have a younger sister and a younger brother. My family was a scouting family. My parents were involved in the boy scouting programs. I always knew I wanted to be a nurse. In all of my schooling, I always took all of the science classes; chemistry and biology, zoology, botany, all of these types of classes. I even took Latin. MF: Well there you go. You went to Ben Lomond, right? DA: I graduated from Ben Lomond in 1959. MF: Why did you decide St. Benedict’s? DA: Well first of all I liked the hands on nursing. I had a lot of respiratory problems and health problems when I was growing up and our family doctor spent Christmas morning at my house giving me penicillin shots, and for most of my life I wanted to go in the medical field and he, our doctor, was the one that said, “You need to go.” He recommended St. Benedict’s. I have a hard time learning just 2 from a book. I learn better from hands on so this would give me a better opportunity to succeed. MF: So was this your first time away from home when you went to St. Benedict’s? DA: Yes. I received the Bamburger scholarship at St. Benedict’s which helped pay for my expenses while I was there. I liked the three years rather than four. That was another plus factor for them. MF: Tell us about the nurse’s home. DA: I was very curious about the sisters. When I found out that they were just plain women and human beings like the rest of us it made it a lot easier. They would always answer any question. If I had a question or anybody had a question like, “What do you do with your hair in that habit?” they would tell us. It was a very friendly atmosphere and the sisters were always willing to help. Sister Berno was a great one for reflective thinking. If you would ask her to get something she would go through a half hour of, “You want what?” “A belt.” “You want a belt?” “Yes Sister, I want a belt,” until you were ready to scream and say “I won’t wear one.” MF: You mentioned Pam was your roommate. DA: Pam was—my first roommate quit and then I moved in with Pam and we were there for the rest of the three years together. She was much easier to room with than a husband. MF: At this time you couldn’t marry, right, when you were in the program? DA: No you could not. MF: Could you be engaged? 3 DA: I was engaged and the night I came back with my diamond, I went to work and we had to shake the thermometers down and I put the ring in my pocket and shook the thermometer. I hit my scissors and all the mercury went over that ring. That is not who I married. MF: Talked about Dr. Swindler, he was probably your most intimidating doctor, do you think? DA: Yes, because you could hear his number thirteen’s coming down the hall regardless and he always had a pipe. In lifting and things like this, if you were not doing it correctly he would swat you on the backside rather than tell you so that you would learn the proper way to do things. MF: When you had study time what did you usually do with your classmates, your roommate, or your friends? Did you study together? DA: We would study some things together but basically it was study alone, either in your room or in the library from 8 P.M. to ten the first year. The second year we had a ten o’clock curfew and they weren’t so strict about classroom study or study after school because of work schedules on the floors. MF: So did you still have classes—for your first year did you still have classes continue for your three years that you were in there? DA: Yes. They weren’t as intense and as long but we still had classes. During the summer we wouldn’t have classes because we staffed the hospital for those two months and then we were off for a month. Some of our instructors were really good. Our clinical coordinators were fantastic. But a lot of times we would have passed it off in lab and when we were on an actual patient to do the procedure 4 you would go to get them and they would say, “Well, I am busy, I can’t do it, just go ahead.” And you would be scared to death because it was a real patient. MF: What were some of the rules you had to follow besides curfew? DA: Chapel at six in the morning, the library, or your room to study—in the evenings, basically it was good discipline training for the rest of your life. MF: What would you do if you had a night off? DA: Because I grew up in Ogden I would sometimes go home. It was interesting because I am LDS and when I graduated from high school I went to St. Ben’s. I went home one night to go to Young Women’s, when I went in and sat down with girls I had grown up with—they all slid away. When we got to class I was sitting here and all the girls came and picked up their chairs and moved them across the room. The teacher came in and she says, “Why are you here? We took you off all our church records.” Because I was going to St. Benedict’s. Then she proceeded to talk about the Catholics. I didn’t know a lot about the Catholics but with the things that she was saying, she knew less. And that was the last time I ever associated with any of those girls. In fact, I was going to quit nurse’s training. I went and talked to our stake president and also a friend of ours and our neighbor—and I said, “What do I do because I am totally annihilated now from these people? Do I quit and go to another school or what?” He said, “No. You can be one with them, not one of them. Those other girls will pay the price someday.” MF: Absolutely. 5 DA: So I stayed at St. Benedict’s. I never ever again, to this day, have any association with those girls. When I was at the TB sanitorium I just lived down the hill and my mom was going to take me back to school and my grandma home. When they got to the gate to enter the TB sanitarium grandma had a holy fit. She said, “You can’t go in there. The TB bugs are standing on the gate and will jump in the car.” And there were a lot of people who would not come to graduation because it was held at St. Joseph’s and they would have to wear a covering on their head when they came. And so they didn’t come. MF: That is too bad that they couldn’t see the benefit of that. DA: Those were some of the trials some of the nurses went through. I learned a great appreciation for the Sisters and have a great love for them. MF: They are all like us and their Christ-like teachings, plus service. DA: I had to take care of Sister Edicta after surgery one time. She was the sister over the operating room. I walked in the room and had to do peri-care on her and she is a Sister. She finally looked at me and she says, “Miss Armstrong? I am a woman and you will take care of me as a woman.” It took away all the barriers. I still had the respect for her but it made it much easier for me to take care of her. MF: When your probationary period was over what were some of the first duties that you had? DA: Giving bed baths. I had a patient who was a Negro. I had never really been around Negros. I walked in, told him who I was, and that I was going to give him a bed bath. You had white towels, white wash clothes. So I start bathing him and my wash cloth became black. I thought I was washing away this man’s color. So 6 I get down to his feet—and he is just laying there enjoying this whole thing. I get down to his feet and I put his foot in the basin and I wash it and there is only four toes, I rinse it and there is only four toes, go around to the other side and there are only four toes on that side. So now I thought I have washed away his color and all Negros have four toes. MP: I thought you were afraid you had washed away two toes. DA: What had happened is during the war he had frost bite and had his middle toes amputated on both feet. He was really good about explaining it. But he told me, “If I had a black wash cloth and a black towel and I gave you a bed bath, I would have white on it.” That was one of the biggest challenges when I was first caring for patients. MF: To get over that fear. MP: And you’re young and naïve. DA: Yes. MF: That would be kind of terrifying. DA: He is a man I will always remember. MF: Were you required to attend Mass at all? DA: Just the special Masses at 5 A.M. It seemed like I always got placed on the last row in front of the Sisters and if I nodded off one would poke me and I would say, “I am awake Sister.” MF: You talked about your capping ceremony which took place in the nurse’s home. DA: My grandfather was sick. If I was off on weekends I would go out and help take care of him. He was excited because I was the first grandchild to go on to 7 school. One night when I was out there taking care of him—my capping is coming up—he said, “When you get your cap and you are a real nurse now, I am going to have the first baby and you are going to deliver it and we’ll make history.” And then he passed away. When my mom came to the nurse’s home to tell me Sister Berno pulled me out of class. They had planned on taking me out of school and going to Willard where he lived. Sister Berno said, “No. You have nothing to do out there. All you will do is sit and moan and cry and weep with all of these other people. Here you have things to learn and to do. At the end of the day after class is over, if you want to go that is fine but you will stay here.” At the time I thought, “You unfeeling woman, this is my grandfather.” But as I got older and got smarter, I realized she had been very, very wise. Because I would have lost everything for class that day and there was nothing really that I could have done in Willard. MF: It saved you a make-up day. DA: She taught me some good lessons. MF: Did you ever have times where the Sisters would come and go for hikes or walks… DA: We had a lot of picnics in the backyard. The Sisters would go on hikes up waterfall, over in Mount Ogden Park and things like this. MP: Sleigh riding. DA: Sleigh riding, yes. Sister Boniface, one time, out in the backyard they were playing—was it volleyball? Anyway, she went running down the lawn and somebody got a hold of her veil. 8 MP: I thought that was Sister Rebecca. DA: No, it was Sister Boniface. It pulled her whole top off. Sister Boniface, I am sure she hated me because I would think at night, “Okay, I will do all the rest of my homework and then if I die during the middle of the night I will not have wasted my last hours doing Sister Boniface’s work. If I don’t die I’ll get up at five o’clock in the morning and do my homework.” Needless to say, I got up at five o’clock and did homework. MF: You mentioned you were on the floors for three months for different rotations. Which floor was your favorite during all those rotations? DA: I liked surgical floor because I was interested in surgery and you could see progress with patients. On the medical floor sometimes it was very depressing because some of these people didn’t get better and they were in there for a long time. MF: They kind of came to the hospital to die. DA: They had serious problems and things like this. In pediatrics, I got too emotionally involved with my patients and as a result I didn’t like this because I became more concerned about them than what I was supposed to be doing. In labor and delivery it was like sitting on a keg of dynamite and you didn’t know how long the fuse was. I did work at Hill Field in labor and delivery and post partum after I was married. MF: Tell us about any traditions you remember at St. Benedict’s. DA: My first one was eating chicken with a knife and a fork. At Christmas time we always had a Christmas program. Other than that I don’t really remember. 9 MF: Graduation you said was at St. Joseph’s church. DA: Yes. MF: Did that take place June? DA: In June. MF: Tell us a little bit about your ceremony. DA: The Knights of Columbus had their swords drawn and we walked in through them. As we walked up to where the actual graduation was up at the front of the church we had to kneel in front of the Bishop who came. But as far as being LDS we were not required to kiss his ring. We had to bend your head forward in reverence to him. MP: We had to kiss his ring. DA: I didn’t. I was told you didn’t have to. And then after you marched back out again but you carried your rose. MF: After you graduated from the school did you stay at St. Benedict’s? DA: No. MF: What did you do? DA: I finished and the next day I started in the operating room at the old Dee Hospital. So my nursing career has basically always been with the old Dee and McKay and IHC. MF: We just did the Dee School of Nursing so that was fun to hear all those fun memories. So when did you retire from nursing? DA: I retired in 1995. I had had back surgery before and it was getting to the point where I could not carry heavy instrument trays and things like this and move all 10 the equipment and patients. I just couldn’t do it anymore so I had to quit. But I had a grandson born. I retired in July and in January my grandson was born with a defective heart. He had Epstein’s anomaly. So I basically learned a different kind of nursing because I’d go down to Primary’s and stay with him and when they finally let him come home I tended him while his parents worked. He had a heart transplant when he was nine months old. We just learned a new different kind of nursing. MF: Absolutely. How do you think nursing has changed over the years? DA: The nurses today do not have the personal care and interest in the patient. It is a job with a paycheck. “When my shift is over I am going home.” The Sisters instilled in us that the patient is number one. And if you have got time that you are not doing something for somebody else you are in a patient’s room with a patient. Different places that I have worked, even on nights, every hour I made rounds on every patient. And the people that would be sitting at the desk would say, “What are you doing? Just sit here. They are asleep. If they are awake they will ring their button.” I just couldn’t do it. MF: That is how you were trained. DA: The Sisters really instilled in us… MF: You want to make sure your patient is appreciated. DA: We did. The patients were number one. When they started telling me I had clients instead of patients I said, “I am sorry. I will always have patients.” MF: Well thank you for sharing your story with us. We appreciate that. Thank you. We are glad you were able to take time to be with us today.