Oral History Program Jeane Barker Morton Interviewed by Marci Farr 13 September 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jeane Barker Morton Interviewed by Marci Farr 13 September 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: Jeane Barker Morton, an oral history by Marci Farr, 13 September 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Jeane Barker Morton Instructor 1948-1957 Photograph taken in 1951 Jeane Barker Morton September 13, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Jeane Barker Morton, conducted by Marci Farr and Sarah Langsdon, on September 13, 2010. In this interview, Jeane discusses her recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. MF: This is Marci Farr. We’re interviewing Jeane Morton; she was an instructor of nursing at St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. She taught there from 1948 to 1957. Tell us just a little bit about your early life; where you grew up, about your family, and where you attended school. JM: I am a native of Ogden. I was born in Logan, but I grew up here and went to school, graduated from Ogden High. I worked for a physician for about a year and a half and decided I needed to become a nurse. I had always wanted to go to Boston, so I thought, well, I can combine the two. So I went to Massachusetts General Hospital school of nursing in Boston, and as I finished there, they gave me an opportunity to be an assistant instructor. So my last three months of my training were as a nursing instructor, and then they asked me to stay on for a year, and it’s a very prestigious school, so of course I was very happy to do that. It turned out to be a good move, because that kind of was an entrée to when I came to Ogden and Sister Mary Margaret said, “You’ve got to come help us with the school.” That’s how I became affiliated with St. Benedict’s. MF: I was wondering how that all worked out. JM: That’s it. 2 MF: Tell us a little bit about some challenges you faced when you first started teaching at St. Benedict’s. JM: Well, the thing was, it was a new school, and there was no curriculum. The only thing we had was a really nice nursing arts lab, which was in the downstairs of the nursing residence. We were able to buy equipment to make it simulate the patients’ unit, only there were six of them, so we could have nursing labs and the students could use each other as patients and practice their skills there before we took them over to the hospital with their real patients. The main thing was developing the curriculum and all of the lectures and the quizzes and evaluations and everything that you have to use. MF: That would be a challenge, to have to make sure it would work, and to figure out if that’s going to be effective or not. JM: Of course, that was before the National League for Nursing accredited schools, but as soon as they started to do that, it was very important that you meet the requirements for accreditation. So that was our goal, and we did achieve that. So for a small place starting up, it was really quite successful. MF: That is a good thing. How was your relationship with the sisters? Did you teach with them? JM: Well, Sister Estelle Nordick was the person who did the sciences. So she was responsible for anatomy and physiology, then I did the nursing application. So my area was the nursing, and hers was the science. MF: So that’s how that worked. That’s good. What did you enjoy the most about teaching? 3 JM: It was always gratifying to see some of these kids – in fact, one who later became an instructor of nursing didn’t even know how to hold a cloth to damp dust the unit, you know, and her mother came up every night to put her hair up for her, and then to see her become an accomplished nurse was very gratifying. The kids were always really eager to learn, and that makes it fun. MF: Did you have any interactions with the students other than when you were teaching them? Did you live at home? JM: They lived in the nursing home, and I had a separate place. Well, I was there a lot, but not at night. I’d come – we’d usually start out about seven in the morning, and then a lot of the physicians helped us with some of the classes. For instance, in med surg we’d invite some of the doctors who specialized in certain areas to come and teach, and of course they could only teach in the evening, so sometimes days were from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. MF: Long hours. You taught the nursing arts – tell us a little about that, what were some of the things you taught? JM: The nursing arts includes all the nursing procedures. Now, nursing has changed a lot over the years. Now we have a lot of drugs to take care of some of the infections that we used to deal with for a long time. So in the early days, we did things like hot packs and flaxseed poultices and things that you would never hear about now. Now the focus is on the medications and record-keeping because of our litigious society and all. In the early days, it was mostly procedures of comfort and treating infections and pain with nursing measures rather than medications. 4 MF: You taught them how to take care of the patient: go in there and make sure they’re okay, assess their situation. JM: We gave bed baths, we changed beds with patients in them; you know, we started out with those fundamental things and then went on to learn how to give injections and all that. MF: That would be a challenge, but it would be good as far as seeing those students be able to excel. Do you have any memories of a patient with a student nurse, or any patients that you cared for? JM: Oh, I just remember one little girl who was so frightened to give an injection, the first time I went in, and I was helping her. We had the arm prepped, and this water kept falling. I thought, what is going on? I looked up, and she was so scared she was just crying. The tears were dripping down, but she gave it and was successful. Then I remember some Native Americans who had been in an accident and came in – I don’t think they’d ever washed their hair. One of the students and I started in the morning about eight o’clock, and about four o’clock in the afternoon we got their hair washed and combed. All that time working on it with the patient in bed. MF: That would be a challenge. But as far as your students being able to learn about those different skills, absolutely important. Did you enjoy working at St. Benedict’s? JM: Oh, yes. MF: What was your relationship with the sisters? Did you get along well with them? 5 JM: I got along very well with them. You know, each one had her idiosyncrasies, and we kind of chuckled about them among ourselves, but they really aren’t any different from us, except that their life is very restricted as far as getting out and all. I think they try not to show the more disagreeable side of human nature, but I think they all have it. MF: Sometimes it comes out. JM: Yes. MF: What do you think was your greatest challenge while you were teaching? The students not understanding, or the long hours, what do you think was the students’ greatest challenge while you were teaching them? JM: I think while we tried to be quite selective, I think a lot of the kids were in over their heads. They didn’t have the background to learn what they needed to do, so trying to help them make up for some of their deficiencies was always a problem. I was always amazed that some of them – being high school graduates – couldn’t even write a sentence. But I guess that’s true today too, from what I hear. MF: Nothing’s changed, has it? SL: How involved were you in the selection process for the students? MF: They had to be a graduate of an accredited high school, and then we gave them an IQ test, which was a short one, and it was one that we could administer, we didn’t have the funds to have a psychologist do it all. We did pretty well, but recruiting nurses was not always easy, so sometimes we took students that were borderline to start with, and it was really hard for them. Then, as the school got better established, we used the Minnesota Multi-Phasic Personality Test, but that 6 was with the help of a psychologist. That helped us weed out people that were really misfits from the word go. So it got better. But again, some were really motivated, and some were just doing it until something better came along. So it kind of depended on the student. I’m sure they’re not much different from the ones you get today. MF: Probably not. Do you want to tell us just a little bit about your nursing career? Tell us a little about where you started out. JM: As I said, I graduated from Massachusetts General, and then went there for a year to teach, then came back to St. Benedict’s. Then I married and moved away, and I had my family and took time out to raise them. Then, when the kids were in college, I went back over to the hospital and they needed somebody in continuing education. So I worked again for another ten years with the education department, and at this point I was mostly orienting new help and also if we had new procedures, new equipment, things like that, showing them how to use it. So my strength, I guess, has been in the education. MF: Did you ever think you would end up teaching nursing, or did it just kind of happen? JM: Well, I really wanted to be a Latin teacher, but I didn’t have enough money to go to college. So I knew that if I went to nursing school, it’s kind of like a working scholarship. You get your room and board. So I think I’ve always been interested in teaching, but didn’t know it until I had a chance to do it. MF: That’s good; so you wouldn’t have probably traded that for anything else? JM: Well, I enjoyed it. 7 MF: There was a lady from the Dee School that went to Massachusetts General; that’s where she got her… JM: Oh yeah, that’s – in fact, she was an instructor for my sister, who is a graduate of the Dee School. MF: Who’s your sister? JM: Well, she was Ruth Barker Blakely. She’s been gone now about ten years or so. MF: So, Rhoda Miner? JM: That’s the one. In fact, that’s where – I thought her cap was cute. If you want to know the truth, that’s why I became interested in Mass General. MF: Because of her cap. That’s what everybody talked about in the Dee Nurses that knew her, said that’s the thing they loved. JM: Plus, I think she was a very good instructor, from what I hear. MF: Yes, very much. That is so interesting. Do you remember, while you were an instructor, do you remember any traditions the school had? JM: The students all had to live in the nurses’ dorm, so there were a lot of restrictions. But for holidays and different things they always had parties and out back of the nursing home in the summer, nice picnics and barbecues and things of that sort. Then at Christmas, they always had a Santa Claus come and do the usual gift-giving and stuff like that. MF: Were you ever involved in graduation? You were involved in the capping ceremony, so maybe tell us a little about that. JM: Well, the capping ceremonies were usually done there in the nursing residence. Then, with graduation, the girls – in their uniform and all – would march down to 8 the church, and they always had them at St. Joseph’s church there on 24th and – I guess it’s Adam’s, isn’t it? MF: Yes, I think so. JM: Then parade down the street and have the ceremony there. MF: That was probably a great ceremony. JM: You know, everybody was thrilled to have finished and accomplished their goal, and the parents were all so proud. It was a nice festivity. SL: Do you have any stories that sort of stick out in your mind from when you were teaching the girls? What sort of trouble they got into? JM: I know one of the things that caught me short was, they had the nursing lab and they knew what their assignment for the next day would be. So I encouraged them to practice, so that when they did their return demonstration they did a nice job. I had to go to do something one evening, and walked into the nursing lab, and as I walked in, this one girl had her back to the door; she was going on, and I thought, what is she doing? They were all laughing at her. Of course, she was mimicking me. The girls who looked at me, saw me come in, tried to cut it, but she didn’t catch on. Then when she turned around and saw me standing there, she was just mortified, but we all had a good laugh, so it was all right. MF: That’s great. So when did you retire? JM: Let’s see. When did I retire? It was in ’79, but then my husband’s a physician, so I then went to work at his office with him, to help him retire. So I had to help close out the office there and all that stuff. Then off and on I still get involved in a lot of things. Probably the most involved volunteer thing I’ve done is – do you 9 remember when they had the swine flu epidemic and we had to give swine flu injections to the whole community? Well, I had to get all the nurses lined up who volunteered to give all those injections. So that’s probably the biggest volunteer job that I’ve done. But you know, nurses are really good – if you ask them to do something, they’ll say, “Yeah, we’ll do it.” MF: Absolutely. So do you volunteer any more other than that? Do you do any other volunteer work? JM: Well, I’ve served on the board for Birth Right and a few organizations like that, but I don’t do any actual nursing. I still am on the board for Institutional Review at Ogden Regional; that’s for any research they do at the hospital. I guess I’ve pretty much closed down on things as to that. MF: Thank you, Jeane, for letting us come visit with you today.