Oral History Program Margo Summerill Eberhard Interviewed by Marci Farr 15 October 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Margo Summerill Eberhard Interviewed by Marci Farr 15 October 2010 Copyright © 2010 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The St. Benedict’s School of Nursing was founded in 1947 by the Sisters of Mount Benedict. The school operated from April 1947 to 1968. Over the forty-one year period, the school had 605 students and 357 graduates. In 1966, the program became the basis for Weber State College’s Practical Nursing Program. This oral history project was created to capture the memories of the graduates and to add to the history of nursing education in Ogden. The interviews focus on their training, religion, and experiences working with doctors, nurses, nuns, and patients at St. Benedict’s Hospital. This project received funding from the Utah Humanities Council and the Utah Division of State History. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management Special Collections All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Margo Summerill Eberhard, an oral history by Marci Farr, 15 October 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Margo Summerill Eberhard Graduation Photo Class of 1963 Margo Summerill Eberhard October 15, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Margo Summerill Eberhard, conducted by Marci Farr and Sarah Langsdon, on October 15, 2010. In this interview, Margo discusses her recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. MF: This is Marci Farr, and we are interviewing Margo Eberhard. She graduated from St. Benedict’s School of Nursing in 1963. It is October 15, 2010, and we are interviewing her at her home in Tremonton, Utah. Tell us a little bit about your early life, your family, where you attended school. Your brothers and sisters, your mom and dad. ME: There was only myself and a sister, and she just recently passed away from dementia. She was younger than me, so it was really a blessing in a way, because we’d lost her four years ago. But I had a wonderful childhood; I was the oldest grandchild on my father’s side and the second oldest on my mother’s side; very close to my cousins. We had a very small family, actually; I had seven cousins on my father’s side and only four cousins on my mother’s side. My sister and I, then my four cousins. But I was very close to all of my cousins, especially on my mother’s side. I was a very spoiled child, I’m sure; my mother didn’t work until I was older. She went to work for First Security Bank Corporation, the one on 24th and Washington. My father had a family business, Summerill Foundry; it was on 22nd and Jefferson, but it has gone by the way. It kind of died because they were into stokers for coal for heating, and when gas came in my father didn’t think it was 2 going to go, but it did, and of course then the foundry business died. So they made water meters, they made a lot of water meters for Tremonton. In fact, I’ve got a lot of them out in my back yard that my husband’s put around. I don’t know what else to say about my childhood. I went to Polk Elementary, I went to Central Junior High, and Ogden High School. Graduated from there in 1959. MF: Okay, that’s good. Tell us why you decided to become a nurse. ME: You know, I don’t know really, other than I loved being a nurse’s aide. ‘Cause see, I got a job doing that, and prior to that I was a Girl Scout for many years, and we did volunteer work at the hospital. So I was a volunteer on the pediatric unit, and I loved doing that. I was actually thinking of being a schoolteacher, because back in my day you could be a schoolteacher, a nurse, or a secretary. Now I think I would have liked being a social worker as well. But that’s kind of like being a nurse anyway. So I think it was just a combination of things that did that, and then my experience at the hospital, knowing it and loving it and all that kind of stuff. MF: So when you applied for St. Benedict’s, did you have any assessments? ME: That’s one thing I’m not sure I can remember, but I know we had applications to fill out and all that kind of stuff. They probably looked at our grades from our school, and I know that you had to be accepted, so I know you had to meet certain criteria, but I do not remember what they all were. I think Sister Berno was the one that did that, back in those days. MF: So she was still your Director of Nursing? ME: Yes. 3 SL: Did you have to have an interview with Sister Berno? ME: I think we probably did, but, I don’t remember. I’m sure I did, but that’s one of those things that has left me. MF: That’s all right. Was this your first time away from home, when you went? ME: Well, I actually lived in Ogden – so in a way yes. MF: But it was okay? ME: Yes, because I loved the dorm. We had a lot of fun – we had an excellent class. Our class was an exceptional class, I think. We started out with thirty-six and ended up with thirty at capping. MF: Wow. ME: We were a very close class, even with affiliations, when we went away to Nebraska and Denver. We stayed in touch, because we were all going our ways at that time, but we stayed in touch. So I loved it. MF: Who was your roommate? ME: Jeanne Wilson was my first roommate, but she’s one that didn’t finish – she left before capping. So Elaine Echelberger was, and then Joanne Romano. That’s all I could remember. Isn’t that terrible, when you can’t remember who you lived with? But that’s all I can remember. I should have called Hope, because she might have remembered. But then I don’t know if she remembers everything either. Then, of course, you had different roommates when you went to your affiliations anyway. I think in Denver we were alone – we had our own room. That was nice. MF: Tell us about your impressions of the sisters. 4 ME: Well, I had worked with many of them. I worked on second medical, so Sister Mary Gerald was the supervisor there; she was very stern. I think I was quite frightened of her, I think she intimidated me. Some of the sisters, like Sister Mercy was so calm and so sweet. I think that I respected them – I certainly didn’t try to do anything to make them angry, because they were quite strict, but I had good memories of them all, even though Sister Mary Gerald intimidated me. I still felt she was an excellent nurse and a good person. MF: That’s good. Was this your first time in association with the sisters? ME: No, because, I had worked as an aide that year before. MF: But before that? ME: Except for my being a volunteer, yes, it was. MF: So I’m sure it was nice to get in there and know them already, so they weren’t so intimidating. ME: That helped, I’m sure, because some of these kids came from far away at that time for people – like Wyoming, and Idaho, and different places. So I was very fortunate to be right from there. MF: Absolutely. So could you go home on the weekends? Could you go home and stay? How did that work? ME: You know, I don’t remember. I don’t think I went home a whole lot, because of our schedule and studying, and it was just fun to be with the girls. MF: You enjoyed that? ME: Yes. MF: That’s good. So did you have time with the sisters, like social activities? 5 ME: We did. We had what we called an annual spaghetti dinner, as a fundraiser. They raised funds to send a student nurse back to the National Student Nurses’ Association. I think they had a tea for us as freshmen when we came in. One of the other classes did, but they always had sisters that let them. Yes, we did things with the sisters, but I can’t remember too many of them other than the spaghetti dinner, which was a really big thing in Ogden, back in those days. That was quite a big thing. A lot of support from the doctors – of course, there weren’t the doctors that there are now. MF: That’s true. Who were some of the doctors? ME: I can remember some of the doctors, but not all of them. Tony Lund was a urologist. He was my father-in-law’s doctor, and interestingly enough, I took care of my father-in-law when he was at St. Benedict’s, but I didn’t know he was going to be my father-in-law at that time, because my husband was on his mission. Oh, my goodness. I’ll have to look in my yearbook. Maybe it doesn’t have the doctors in here. Some of them have the doctors in them, and some of them don’t. This one is the year I graduated. I remember Dr. Grua, because when I helped him in surgery he scared me, but I still learned a lot. Okay – Dr. Jorgensen was an obstetrician, and then Dr. Farr was the lung doctor, I remember. Dr. Harding was the eye doctor; Dr. Lowe was the surgeon; Dr. DeMars was the ENT, Dr. Hales was an ENT. Dr. Krumbach was urinary, and Keith Stratford was our instructor of psychology. He was so funny. We put a 6 dummy in the room, and he didn’t even know there was a dummy in there. We set a dummy up in the classroom. MF: Mrs. Chase – was that her name, Mrs. Chase, the dummy? ME: I don’t think – I don’t think it was Mrs. Chase, I think it was a man we set up. I just remember we did that, and he was just oblivious that we were doing that. But I cannot think of – I think I’ve told you all the ones I remember, and I probably would remember more if I stopped and thought about it. MF: Was Dr. Swindler there still? ME: Yes, Dr. Swindler was – in fact, Connie, one of the students a year ahead of me, married him eventually. Connie Garver. Now, were you guys there at Weber State when Ruth Wheeler was a teacher? Of course, you weren’t in the nursing department, were you? MF: No. ME: This is not a good yearbook – I just noticed that it doesn’t have everybody in it. Connie Garver is who married Dr. Swindler. Is he still alive? That’s the one thing I feel bad about; I don’t even take an Ogden paper, so I don’t even know, now my sister’s died, she used to keep me informed. I don’t know what’s going on, who’s died and who’s still living. MF: That does make that hard. What was something that you would do with your roommate or your classmates if you had some spare time? ME: We did a lot of things. We’d take mattresses from our rooms and take them in one of the other rooms, and we’d have sleepovers in each others’ rooms, take our mattresses and just put them on the floor. We’d go out and eat – we went to 7 Canton Café a lot, and the other Chinese restaurant down there – Utah Noodle. Is that still there? Because when I was there the last time, in April, they were making some changes and the girl didn’t know what was going to happen to it. MF: Looked like it was still there when I went by the other day. ME: Because you know you’d die for their shrimp. We had a bowling league, so we bowled once a week. In fact, one time, when we bowled, and I think it was a Thursday night that we bowled, we had a big anatomy and physiology test the next day. We all failed it. Sister Estelle – of course she’s died, because she had her legs amputated, but we kept track of her there – we were in big trouble, no question. MF: Because bowling took precedence over the test? ME: It did. It did that night, anyway. Hope was smart. Connie Lewis was smart, Karen Iverson (Black) was smart. You kind of – there were those that you knew were smart, and those of us that were not so smart. But they even failed. So that was not good. We were kind of reprimanded a little bit over that. MF: Which were your favorite classes that you took? ME: I loved Nursing Fundamentals, and I loved med/surg, because everything kind of came together, you know? Sister Boniface scared me – she was the nutrition teacher. She scared me. I don’t know if I really had any favorite classes, other than I did not like chemistry, because I was never any good at chemistry. I think I liked psychology, even though we had a different teacher. MF: Did you ever try to sneak out? 8 ME: I got in late one night, because I went on a date and we went to Lagoon, and we didn’t get home in time – but I don’t remember getting in trouble over it. I think I was a nervous wreck about being late, but I don’t think we ever got in trouble. I don’t remember that. We did have a curfew, but it never bothered me at all to have a curfew, because you kind of needed that security. I think I was only late one time. Of course, I may have forgotten that because I didn’t want to remember. MF: Which rotation while you were at St. Benedict’s did you enjoy the most? ME: Probably medical. I liked the others, and I loved psych too, because I loved our Hastings affiliation. I’ve still got papers from there about my patients. I didn’t mind the children, but I don’t think I liked seeing children sick. Emergency room I was always scared to death I’d know somebody that would come in, because being from Ogden – so I didn’t care for the Emergency Room. A lot of people thrive on the Emergency Room; they love that excitement. But second medical, because I loved taking care of the strokes, and the older people. I was in the nursing home business for years. I mean, I just worked as a nurse – I was an administrator at the Pioneer in Brigham and different things, so I loved medical, just the medical aspect. MF: That’s good. Was Helen Farr there at that time? Was she still an instructor? ME: Was she your relative? MF: We’re all kind of halfway related. Her husband comes through Loren Farr, and we come through his brother. But yes, somewhere along the lines. ME: I don’t remember her. 9 MF: I can’t remember when she was there; she was only there for a few years. ME: I do not remember her, I’m sorry. MF: That’s fine. Short, she has blonde hair. ME: I don’t think she’s in any of my books. There’s one teacher I didn’t remember, whose picture is in the book, but I remembered all of the rest. MF: That’s good. When you went to Hastings, how long were you in Hastings? ME: Three months. Three months there and three months in Denver. Our rotation was that we were gone six months all together. We went from Hastings to Denver. So that was a good experience too – I loved that. We actually got there in March, and it was winter, so lived in the tunnels for the first couple months, probably, until the snow melted. I guess it snowed a lot that year, particularly, at Hastings. But then we were at Denver at a good time, because we went to the park – they had a lot of plays in the park – and we did a lot of stuff. Made some good friends. MF: Probably just be able to have the training – where you had such a well-rounded training, be able to go any place you needed to and not worry. ME: Wasn’t boring. MF: I’m sure. SL: What do you remember about being in Hastings? ME: The patients. You know, we had – in the different areas you worked, you picked one patient and worked with that patient. One patient I had was an alcoholic, and she was young. She was not old, but she’d gone to drinking because her family had been killed in a car accident. Then the other lady I had was named Katherine 10 Polthoff, and another lady was named Olive – something – I can’t remember her last name now. But she was really psycho. She would write everything – her writing was just perfect, but she would write everything. What she had for breakfast: she’d write, I had a piece of toast and put Blue Bonnet margarine on it. But I loved it – I loved psych. Medical and psych. MF: Those were probably your favorites. That’s good. What about Denver? Did you have any memorable patients? ME: I just remember kids being sick and not liking that. I don’t remember as much about Denver for some reason, and it’s interesting, because I had an aunt that lived in Littleton, because her husband was a pilot. So she’d come and get me, and I’d go out to her house, and we made some good friends and did things in Denver, but I don’t remember other than the hospital was huge. MF: Probably comparable to Primary Children’s? ME: Probably. Of course, it would be very old – I don’t know if it even still exists, because that’s been a long time ago. They’d have to have built a new one now to keep up with everything. MF: What do you remember most about your capping ceremony? ME: I don’t remember a whole lot, other than it was just a wonderful feeling to get to that point. I remember it was very solemn and very – I hate to say regimented – but you just did certain things. You had a certain protocol to follow, and I just know it was a good feeling to get to that point. We loved it. MF: Made it to that point. We had one lady say she was so excited she slept in her cap that night, because she was so excited. 11 ME: Wow. I don’t think I slept in my cap. I don’t remember doing that, no. But it was neat. MF: Tell us a little bit about your graduation. ME: The graduation, I remember, was held in the Catholic church which was on the corner of – it’s across from Larkin Mortuary, and I want to say – is it Ogden Avenue? MF: Adam’s. ME: Adam’s, thank you, yes. I remember the church being so big. We went down there and practiced, because we had to go up and kneel and all that stuff. It just was impressive, I think. Of course, being LDS and doing a Catholic thing, we had to kiss the ring and all that stuff, but you just did it. You didn’t want to make waves or anything, so you just did it. But I never felt that they forced us into anything. MF: So the religious part never played a part. ME: We actually went to something every morning before we had to be on the floor, before we went to breakfast even, I think. We went to chapel. I think it was on the main floor – now I can’t even remember that. But we did that, just kind of prepared us for the day, but I never felt forced. Never felt like it was the Catholic girls over us. MF: They were accepting, and it didn’t matter. ME: Right. MF: Good, that’s a nice thing. What do you think was probably your greatest challenge while you were in nurses’ training? 12 ME: I think just trying to keep up, maintain and learn. MF: It was a rigorous schedule. ME: It was, but it was an excellent schedule. I wish they had schools of nursing still. MF: That were like that, where you stayed in the dorms and had your clinical and the hands-on? ME: The hands-on was beyond – you could not surpass that. I think that was one of the big, important things that was very good. MF: So did you stay at St. Benedict’s after you graduated? What did you do? ME: No, I didn’t. I married – we graduated and two weeks later I got married, so I moved up here. We moved out to Bothwell, because my husband farmed with his father, and we were only out there about a year and then we moved to Brigham. So I worked at the Cooley Hospital in Brigham. Then from there I went to Pioneer Care Center, which is the care center down there; worked there for many years. Then I left there and went over to Sunshine Terrace, and just retired from Sunshine Terrace in January. MF: In Logan, right? ME: Yes. I would have liked to work another year, but they were having me do home health; and I’m sorry, but I did not like home health. MF: That’s a hard thing to do. ME: I did not like it. I like the facility – the hands-on in the facility, other than I did not do that, actually; I did admissions. I did not do a lot of nursing this last few years. 13 MF: How do you think your training’s probably made the difference in your career, do you think, as far as everything you were trained for, do you think your training helped? ME: Oh, absolutely. Because my memories of all of it are so good. Even the bad moments, like failing that test and that – there were other bad moments too, I’m sure, but that’s the one that sticks out in my mind. MF: Just being able to do whatever you were asked, going into that situation and feel comfortable. ME: Yes. MF: Well, thanks for letting us come and visit with you today. We appreciate you sharing. ME: You’re welcome.