Oral History Program Carol Peterburg Goedde and Mary Lou Blanchard Hess Interviewed by Marci Farr 1 October 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Carol Peterburg Goedde and Mary Lou Blanchard Hess Interviewed by Marci Farr 1 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: Carol Peterburg Goedde and Mary Lou Blanchard Hess, an oral history by Marci Farr, 1 October 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Carol Peterburg Goedde Graduation Photo Class of 1958 Carol Peterburg Goedde October 1, 2010 Mary Lou Blanchard Hess Graduation Photo Class of 1959 Mary Lou Blanchard Hess October 1, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Carol Peterburg Goedde and Mary Lou Blanchard Hess, conducted by Marci Farr and Sarah Langsdon, on October 1, 2010. In this interview, Carol and Mary Lou discuss their recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing Mary Lou Hess, who graduated from the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing in 1959, and Carol Goedde, who graduated from St. Benedict’s School of Nursing in 1958. It is October 1, 2010, and we are interviewing them in Seattle, Washington. Will both of you just tell us a little bit about where you grew up, your family, where you went to school? CG: I was born and raised in Preston, Idaho, just across the Utah border, and really didn’t know much about Ogden at all, because I stayed pretty close to home. More familiar with Pocatello than Ogden. MF: Tell me about your family. CG: Well, I’m one of eleven – third from the youngest. One brother had died early, and then another brother died in his twenties. So I remember him. Otherwise, we were farm people; worked hard. That’s about it. MF: Mary Lou, where did you grow up? MH: I grew up in Ogden. I had one younger brother and one younger sister; my dad worked for the railroad. My mother was Italian; that kind of flavored my life. I was part of the Italian community in Ogden. I always knew about St. Benedict’s. I don’t remember when it was built – I think it was in 1946 when it opened. I was 2 born in ’38, so figure it out – I wasn’t very old. But always, I remember the hospital and the reputation, and I looked up to the nurses, and the girls who went to nursing school there were top-notch. MF: Where did you attend high school? MH: Ogden High. MF: And you were at Preston? CG: Yes, Preston High. MF: Why did you both decide to become a nurse? Was there a certain reason? CG: I think my sister – my older sister was a nurse, and I think I just kind of followed in her footsteps. She graduated from Pocatello – St. Anthony’s. I think it was a neighbor that thought I would like Ogden better. She encouraged me. MF: And that’s how you came to Ogden. CG: I didn’t even apply in Pocatello – I just applied in Ogden. MH: What was the question? MF: Why did you decide to be a nurse? MH: I can’t remember when I didn’t want to be a nurse. Like Janet said – there weren’t multitudes of choices, but I knew I didn’t want to be a schoolteacher. My sister is a schoolteacher. I just always wanted to be a nurse. My mother had bouts of depression. I was the oldest daughter, and I just kind of grew up in a situation where I knew I would have to take charge. I just always wanted to be a nurse. There were no other nurses in my family; the other nurses I knew were friends. But they were always people that knew how to take charge, and knew 3 what to do when things went wrong. I admired that. I think that’s why. I never wanted to be anything else for very long. MF: That’s good, it was a good choice. MH: I think it was. MF: Was this your first time away from home, both of you? MH: Yes. But you were really away from home; I was just up the hill. CG: Oh, yeah. MF: So tell us about that when you first entered nurses’ training, what were your impressions? CG: Well, I think the first thing was, I had never owned a watch. That was a requirement, we had to have a watch with a second hand on it. My brother-in-law was in the Navy, and he could get it at the PX at a cheaper price. That was the most exciting thing, was to get this watch, my very first watch. It came just shortly before we were to go to school, so that was an exciting thing for me. I don’t know, I think – I was anxious to get there. MF: Were you homesick? CG: Well, I had a brother that lived in Clearfield, so I could call on him if I got homesick or anything. So that kind of helped, I think, for me. MF: And Mary Lou, you were just down the hill, so you were able to go home, so that probably helped. MH: Right. You couldn’t go home every night, there was too much to do – there was studying to be done and everything. In fact, I don’t even think we could go away every day, but it was the first time away from home, and it had a feeling to it that 4 you’d moved on in the world. You’d moved on and up. But I went home a lot. Usually dragging a few friends with me, I think, as I remember. I remember my dad would drive us places. He had – we used to call the old Buick the taxicab, because my dad would drive us places, if we wanted to go someplace we couldn’t take a bus or walk or something. I do remember that. So my first experience of going away was when we went to Nebraska. Or was it Denver first? No, Nebraska. I don’t remember being terribly homesick there, though. A little, maybe. MF: You were probably busy enough, and enjoyed it. MH: And it was fun. Like somebody said, Nebraska was fun. I forgot to tell you that there were boys waiting there, the minute the girls showed up in the new class, they came to look them over and make friends and invite them to all the parties. It was a lot of fun. MF: That’s always a good thing. So who was your roommate? MH: Pat. MF: And who was yours? CG: I had a classmate who was also in my high school. I was surprised when I got there and she was there. But she quit early on, and then most of my time my roommate was Pat Ulibarri. She was from Ogden. MF: We just interviewed her sister, Jo. CG: Oh, is that right? MF: Dr. Ulibarri’s up at Weber. 5 CG: I remember her sister; the first day I was on the floor, she was working. She was a senior, I think, at that time. So I remember her. MF: Were you with her all three years? CG: I know we were both in Denver and in Hastings, we were together. MF: Were you and Pat together all three years? MH: We were, and on affiliation. Whenever we had disagreements, we worked them out, didn’t we, Pat? It was a learning for life. MF: I’m sure, because you have this diversity coming together, and trying to work with people from different backgrounds, different families. So when you make that work, you know you’ve succeeded. MH: It’s a part of the success, I think. SL: What were your rooms like? MH: Oh, the rooms. CG: Two beds, and they were small – and did we have two desks? MH: Yes. And two dressers, didn’t we have two dressers? And I always say that I had a sister at home, that I shared my bed with, I went to nursing school, and I could touch Pat in the next bed. She was right across this narrow space. CG: They were narrow. MH: There were these two closets at the end, and here was the door into the room, and these closets had doors on them. So if you wanted to slow somebody down coming into your room, you’d just open both doors. Then they had to break down the barrier. We all did it a lot. 6 CG: We were lucky if one of them had a radio. The TV was in the lounge, that was the only TV, and that was for everybody. So you had to agree what you were going to watch. MH: I don’t remember watching television. CG: Oh, we used to watch Ed Sullivan, and certain shows. But you were studying a lot, I mean, in the evening, because you worked from three to seven, and then you had to go to your room to study. Then in the morning it was to get up and be on duty from seven to ten, and then class. So there wasn’t a lot of free time. SL: Did you have a house mother? CG: Lena. She’s in my one book. MF: Tell us about her. What do you remember about her? CG: Sweet, sweet, kind person. MH: Nice lady. CG: She was never married. Wasn’t she from Wyoming? I think she was originally from Wyoming. But a real dear person. MF: Did she just pretty much make sure you were in? What were her responsibilities as far as the nurses? CG: Did she clean the hallways? MH: I don’t remember that. CG: Because Sister Berno used to always come and tell you if you had dust bunnies under the bed. But Lena – I don’t think ever did. 7 MH: I don’t remember. I mean, Lena was just nice, and she was there, and she actually lived in the nurses’ home, along with some other nurses, women that were working there. MF: Ones that were registered nurses. MH: Right, and they worked there. One was even an anesthetist. They had kind of a little friendship, and they did things together. But Lena was somebody you could go to if you had a problem, I think, with your bed or the plumbing, but I don’t remember confiding in Lena. CG: She was just there. But she was just a sweet person. MH: She was a very nice person. MF: How did you get along with all your other classmates? Were you all pretty close? CG: We didn’t have classes with the juniors or seniors. You had your own. MF: Just had separate. Did you, as 1958 class, did you get along really well as far as everybody in the group, with the girls you were going through training with? CG: I suppose – I don’t remember anybody fighting. I mean, everybody was very civil. MH: That’s what I remember too, Marci. I wouldn’t say that you were friends with everyone equally, but everyone got along, and everybody had people they were closer to. Some of them were the people they went on affiliation with, and some just had good chemistry because you have similar interests, similar laughs. MF: That’s good, and being able to still get along, being able to work with each other. That does help. MH: Yes, mutual respect. MF: Absolutely. 8 SL: Was there any difference between the LDS girls and the Catholic girls, or the other? MH: I think it’s a good question, and I think most of the girls who came in that were not Catholic came with a fair amount of tolerance. Would you say that, Pat? Yeah, they were tolerant, and I don’t think they – I don’t know what they would say, but I never felt like they had to do some of the things Catholic girls did. We had to go on retreat. But the people who weren’t Catholics didn’t have to. We had to take a religion class, but the other girls didn’t have to. It just added to the burden. We all had to take Ethics. Everybody took Medical Ethics. I remember that everybody seemed to practice their own religion, insofar as it went. MF: And that was never an issue? CG: I don’t recall. I mean, they were not required to go to Mass. We weren’t necessarily required either. MF: It was just a choice if you wanted to. MH: If you were there on Sunday, I think you were expected to, but no, I don’t know what they would say. I won’t speak for them, but from my perception, everybody got along okay, and actually, I got along better in nursing school with the girls who were Mormon than I did when I was in high school and grade school. Because everybody had kind of grown up, and there was a lot more tolerance. MF: The class of ’62 are saying that that was something that they were glad when they finally got to this point in nurses’ training, because they’d had the experiences where people kind of shunned, you know, and it was nice to go and 9 be able to go and be respected. It didn’t matter, you can love somebody no matter what their religious affiliation is. MH: That’s right. MF: So that was nice for them to be able to go there and feel like, I’m doing something that’s important, and it doesn’t matter as far as beliefs or anything. I thought, what a nice thing, because that’s how it should be. You have your one common goal, is to make sure these people are going to be taken care of. MH: In nursing school, you had to mature. I mean, life was right there, shouting in your face. Life and death, and I think you just grew up a lot in three years, and boy, differences in religion fell way down off the scale. CG: We had one gal in our class that was Protestant – Lou Ann, but I don’t think it was ever any issue. She remained faithful to her religion, and it was no big deal. MF: Tell us about any rule-breaking, or curfew, any sneaking out – do you have any stories? How you got in and out. MH: Carol has a few. CG: You know, I can’t remember – well, it was when we were in training, because it was your classmates that I was hanging out with. MH: Not me. CG: Sneaking through that tunnel, and it was kind of spooky. Like you say, you never knew who you might encounter, if it was one of the nuns that was coming to go to the hospital. But it was not until probably my senior year. But I don’t remember staying out late, you know, or sneaking in. I just remember coming through that tunnel a lot, that we would go someplace. But it was Laura, because she was an 10 aide, and she had a car. So that gave us a little more freedom. And Ruth and Marilyn, that we would chase with. This Laura was from Ogden, and so she had friends around, and stuff, that we would go see. That was access, I guess. MF: Tell us about your first impressions with the sisters. What do you remember when you were first in nurses’ training? MH: Well, when I was growing up I had had catechism, we called it in those days, from the Holy Cross sisters. They were much more stern. I really liked Benedictans. You know, they were friendly, they had parties, they liked to socialize. They would have a dinner party and invite the doctors, and they knew how to socialize. That’s what I remember about them. There were some I was afraid of, like any teacher, and others that I could actually tell my problems to. Sister Estelle was very stern in class, but she had more people who were – she was their advisor, and we chose our own advisor. It didn’t have to be a nun, it could be anybody, but a lot of us chose Sister Estelle. MF: For her compassionate understanding? MH: I think we respected her. She’d tell you, if you went in crying to her about it, well, you better shape up, that’s the way it is. MF: So did you think – as far as their habit and everything, to me it seems like you try to figure out. They seem like they’re not human as far as emotions or anything like that. CG: I just remembered – Sister Mary Gerald, on the medical floor, when you would see her come from chapel or from lunch, and the head was down, and she was walking fast, and that veil – you knew that things were not well. 11 MH: Stay out of her way. CG: You kind of – that’s right, you would kind of scatter. MF: So did you socialize with them after? I mean, did you have activities after hours or on the weekends? MH: Some. CG: Well, we had like Christmas parties where we wore formals, and they had activities. MH: We had a tea; soon after we came into nursing they had a tea for us, and right after that tea we were all called into a room, and Sister Davidann gave us a class on how to behave at a tea. You don’t scarf up all the food on the table, and you don’t hold the cup with your little finger up and look over it. You put your finger down. I still remember it, isn’t it funny? I remember that. But I remember they would have things like this tea, where you were supposed to dress up and act like a lady, and then they would have a barbecue, and we’d wear our levis and be outside, and I can remember some of them playing tennis. Some of them were more approachable. Sister Mercy, very approachable. CG: She used to take a ribbon and tie her veil back to play tennis. MF: So was it nice to see them in that aspect of their life, to be able to see they’re human, and they’re approachable? MH: Yes. CG: Or when you’d have them as a patient. That was an eye-opener, because we would never see them without their habit. I remember one coming in from the – they were in a different part of the nursing home than we were, and I don’t know 12 why this one was in the bathroom, but we were dying to know if they had hair, because those habits fit so tight. She had short hair, but had a little cap on, and she had a nightgown or something, and a robe. That’s the first one we’d ever seen- I don’t know why she was in our bathroom, but she was, and that was the first one I’d ever seen. MF: It would make you wonder, because that’s all you see, is their beautiful face, and that’s it. CG: Well, you know, once in a while you’d see a little wisp of hair or something, but you were just dying to know what that was underneath. MH: I have to tell this story about Sister Boniface. She was so intimidating in the diet kitchen. She was so exacting. Everybody was terrified of her, and you thought that you could be ruined at that rotation, and it was into your second year. She wore the coke-bottle glasses, and she moved fast, and you shouldn’t make a mistake if you were in the line for the trays and you got the wrong thing, or you took the wrong tray to the wrong patient. Well, we got through – all of us got through diet kitchen one way or another, and that was a story for me, too, I’m not going to tell. But when I graduated and I was working for Pat Brown at St. Benedict’s, I was kind of her right arm. I went back to Minnesota; we were recruiting nurses, and we saw Sister Berno and Sister Mercy – she had a different name then – and it was after the ‘60s. So they had all come out of their habits and were wearing their street clothes. Boy, word gets around. Somebody was there from Ogden, and somebody said, do you want to see Sister Boniface? She’s here, she’s visiting. She’s teaching in Minneapolis now, or something. I 13 said, sure. So I had coffee with Sister Boniface, and it was like one of you. She was just in street clothes, she had contacts, I’m sure, by then – she looked normal. Poor thing. She was just so kind and interesting – very intelligent woman. MF: Was that so different from just thinking diet kitchen? MH: I know – it was like a whole different person, I could hardly wait. Then, another time I went to see Sister Estelle, after she’d had both legs amputated, and she was in a long-term care facility there. So she was in her eighties, and she was so vital. She said to me, I like to watch the program on television where they ask questions as old as the hills. They ask it in statement form and you answer it – Jeopardy. She liked to watch Jeopardy. She said, I like to answer it faster than the people on the show, because it keeps me going. She was just the same, only she was also in street clothes. I think she had a little veil on or something. They were very special women. MF: You can tell, because of how they were, how it affected your lives, the type of nurses that you became because of their being able to teach you everything I think just made all the difference in the world. They were wonderful teachers, I think. CG: There was a certain awe about them. Then, you know, like going on a picnic – it was after I finished that we went up Ogden Canyon and one of the doctors had a place that we had a picnic. To see them in a social situation – I remember Sister Mary Margaret with – she was the administrator of the hospital – somebody says, Sister, do you mind if I smoke? And she said that was the hardest thing for her to give up when she entered the convent. Even now, when people smoked around 14 her, it took her back to that time and place, she still missed it. I thought, what a revelation, because you put them up on this pedestal. That was hard for her. MF: That’s such an interesting story, because you just have no idea. Tell us about some of the classes that you enjoyed, that you took while you were in training. CG: Anatomy and physiology… that was hard. But Sister Estelle was such a good teacher, and fair. MH: She was fair, you’re right. But when you went to Sister Estelle’s class, you were expected to recite, so you knew what you were going to have to know. So it was going to be the chapter on bones. So you go into class the next morning, and she would call on you by your last name – I was Miss Blanchard. “Miss Blanchard, tell me the bones in the leg.” You would stand up next to your chair, and you would say, in full sentences, “The bones in the leg are…” There was some expression she wouldn’t tolerate, and I can’t remember what it was… some use of words that wasn’t correct. It’ll come to me later, I’ll tell you, and you can put it in. Then you’d sit down. Well, if you don’t think that made you study the night before – you never knew what you’d be called on for. “Is when” was the unacceptable phrase. She would correct you – “occurs when.” MF: I’m sure it struck terror into your heart. MH: Terror into your heart. Some days you might even get off work, go to class, and never be called on. MF: The next day, though. MH: I learned so much from those women. You can imagine – they were getting us ready for state boards. 15 MF: Yes, to be able to pass those. Tell us about your rotations when you went to Children’s Hospital and also Hasting’s. CG: At Children’s all I can really remember is counting IV drops. You had to make sure that they were going at the rate. They were hard to adjust – but you had to adjust, and every time you went in – I mean, there were certain times that you had to count drops, and at night, that was hard. MF: I’m sure; you were trying to keep your eyes open. Drip, drip. CG: That was hard. MH: And it would have been very serious if you had gotten it wrong. Now they have pumps. CG: That was the main thing about Denver. Hastings, that was another story. All those tunnels underneath. I remember the first night, getting there, and they had all this nice bread and all this meat. We thought we’d died and gone to heaven, because there was all this meat. Well, you found out it was sliced tongue. MF: Oh, yum… CG: But, you know, they had apples and cookies and everything, but it was in the wintertime, and it was cold. A lot of times, the wind blew, and it was too cold, so you had to go from building to building under these tunnels. You never knew who would be down in the tunnels. But it was an interesting experience. That was just when the thorazine and – I think thorazine was the main drug that they were using. But we saw what the insulin shock treatments, and then the thorazine had come out, so that was the main drug that was used. MF: So were they still doing shock therapy? 16 CG: Oh, yeah, we had helped with that. MH: The hospital was full. Lots of people were committed to psychiatric hospitals. Nowadays, they’re not. It was in the sixties when they just kind of opened the doors, because there were a lot more medications they could give people. CG: We had locked doors. MF: So you had your keys that you had to keep with you? MH: Somebody did. MF: Somebody – you just had to make sure you were on the other side of the door? MH: Exactly. CG: I remember there was a fire that had happened at one of the other psych hospitals, so they transferred a bunch of patients to this one ward. They called it a day room, and they had pool tables and card tables. I remember when they brought this big influx of patients, that one fellow was shooting pool, and the balls were scattered – I mean, they went all over the room, because he hit it really, really hard. These pool balls were just flying all over the place. You know, there was so many extra patients that it was kind of dangerous for a little bit. And I remember one ward where the man went around and said, “Which way to the men’s restroom?” He said that all day long. He’d come up to you – “Which way to the men’s restroom?” You’d tell him, and then five minutes later, he would ask somebody else. It was very, very interesting. MH: You did psychiatric nursing all day, like somebody else said – the classes, the experience. It was a good school; it was a very good affiliation, and so was Denver. Denver was more intense to me, at least this was my experience; it was 17 more intense intellectually. To me, psych nursing was easy, but I don’t know that everybody would say that. But peds was difficult. It was hard, and the expectations there were kind of like home, only it was a secular hospital. But it was fun to be away from home. MF: It was probably nice to have that experience. MH: It was, and to be in a city like Denver. It was fun. MF: Tell us a little bit about your capping ceremony. What do you remember most about that? CG: Carrying the lamp. MF: We went to Clara Sorenson’s; she has her lamp, she actually kept it. CG: I’ve got mine. MF: We’re so excited! What a great ceremony, to know that you were able to make it to that point and have a cap. Did you sleep in your caps? We were talking to this lady, she said she slept in hers, she was so proud. MH: I can remember the occasion, was like a milestone, a big milestone. If you could make it to capping and still be in nursing school, then you had kind of arrived. CG: Haven’t flunked out or anything. MH: My whole family showed up – my grandmother was there, my little brother. I found a picture the other day. Everybody was so proud of me, and nobody was as proud as I was of myself. MF: It’s a great accomplishment, absolutely. Tell us about graduation. What do you remember most about graduation? 18 CG: Well, for me it was – my father had just been killed in an accident not too long before, so it was a pretty emotional experience for me. But I mean, the uniforms, and carrying the big bouquet of roses – it was a beautiful, beautiful ceremony, because all the other underclassmen came with their capes and their caps and all, and then as graduates, we wore a special uniform and carried these roses. I think it was kind of thrilling. You know, you really felt you’d accomplished something. MF: You did – you survived! MH: Exactly. MF: What was your greatest challenge while you were in nurses’ training? MH: Staying there, I think, was my greatest challenge. Every time I’d think about leaving, leaving for any reason for example, it was too much work – I was too tired to get married. I’d think about what I did before I went to nursing school. I had dipped ice cream at Farr’s Ice Cream. I do not want to do that again. MF: Do you think, as far as the training that you received, how do you think that helped you through your career? Do you think that made all the difference? CG: Well, I think we got a really good experience. I mean, we were ready to go, because we had worked quite a bit. MF: You had your experience, and you were just going to go out to the field and practice what you learned. I hear you have a story you need to tell us, right? MH: Oh, Pat – I’ll tell you off camera, at the end. SL: What was your favorite rotation? Other than affiliations, what floor did you enjoy working on? 19 MH: You know, I loved everything about nursing. I remember liking medical, I liked pediatrics; I went back and worked on pediatrics – I liked psych. Late in my life I did home care. I kind of just plain liked nursing. I was going to tell you something, and it escaped me. What were we talking about – oh, it doesn’t matter. What was the last question you asked? MF: Just about your training from St. Benedict’s. MH: Oh – we’ve all talked about experiences. I want to put a little different slant on it. In three years, you don’t have to give a bed bath that many times to learn to give a good bed bath. You have to learn how to assess a patient, and people always say that, you know. But it was a little too much slave labor. Then, when I worked in the two-year program, I could really see how they mixed going to class, learning all the subjects, and applying it. Nursing has always had clinical experience, always, no matter what kind of nursing. You had to have it. So I think we just got so much, we were like experience nurses. I heard somebody from your class say that she went to work in New Jersey, and they hired her and said she had a year of experience because she’d come from a three-year school. MF: Oh, wow, very nice. MH: The negative thing about it was, if you quit nursing at St. Benedict’s, you had nothing. You didn’t even have a class credit to carry someplace. You know, you could go two and a half years, and unless they let you come back at some point, or you decided you wanted to, it’s not like now. At least those credits could go with you. So there were some things about it. It was the old way, and it came out 20 of religious orders, and it certainly produced good nurses, and we learned a lot about caring, but I think the way nurses are educated today is far better. MF: We’re not here to say no or yes. Tell us about after graduation – what did you both do after you graduated from St. Benedict’s? CG: Well, I worked there at St. Benedict’s until 1960, and then I came out to Seattle. I took kind of a different track. My sister had worked for the Red Cross on bloodmobiles, so that’s what I did when I came to Seattle. I went to St. Cabrini Hospital and interviewed; then I saw the blood bank across the street and I thought that sounded interesting. I worked there for five years, so that was my first job in Seattle. The nice thing about that is that we went into a lot of the communities around Seattle. I went to the jails, the prisons, the colleges, the army bases, the community fire stations – so I got to learn about Seattle in those years. But there was lots of jobs available at that time. MF: That’s good. And you’ve stayed up here ever since then? CG: Yes. MF: So when did you retire? Are you officially retired? CG: I stayed home with the children, and then I took a refresher course, and then I did some home nursing. Then I did insurance physicals; that was my last job. MF: Mary Lou, what did you do? MH: Well, I taught for a few months, and then I didn’t work for years. I stayed home and raised my children. Then I went back to school at the University when they had a program at Weber and got my Bachelor’s degree. Then I worked for St. Benedict’s, with Pat Brown, for seven years. At that time I did just pretty much 21 what needed to be done in nursing administration. Then, when I left there, I went to the University of Utah and worked with Janice Hassell, if you’ve talked to Janice. MF: Next week? MH: It was Janice Grace then. I work with Janice – I worked, really, for Janice. She was in charge. In the program the University of Utah had in Ogden, as clinical instructor. Then they closed that program, and I went to work for Jeri Hansen at Weber. Is that the right order? Maybe. Then, when I worked at Weber, I worked in the two-year program. They really encouraged people to stay current in nursing practice. People did it in various ways, but in that time I worked a little bit in peds. I think I actually volunteered in peds, so I felt adequate to teach peds, because I was just doing clinical. Then I actually worked for money in home care and in psych. I was still working there when I came up here, and that was when I retired. MF: When did you leave Weber? MH: I think I officially left in ’96. It’s been a while now. MF: That’s good. Well, we appreciate you letting us visit with you both, it’s been great.