Oral History Program Janet Lynne Johnson Interviewed by Marci Farr 6 September 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Janet Lynne Johnson Interviewed by Marci Farr 6 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: Janet Lynne Johnson, an oral history by Marci Farr, 6 September 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Janet Lynne Johnson Graduation Photo Class of 1960 Janet Lynne Johnson September 6, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Janet Lynne Johnson, conducted by Sarah Langsdon, on September 6, 2010. In this interview, Janet discusses her recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. SL: This is Sarah Langsdon, and I’m interviewing Janet Johnson, who was a graduate of the class of 1960 from St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. It is September 6th, 2010, and I’m interviewing her at her home in Springville. Janet, will you just tell me a little bit about where you grew up, your family, and where you attended school? JJ: I grew up in Wyoming. Until I went to St. Benedict’s, I’d never lived outside of Wyoming for more than two weeks. My father was an educator, so when I was very young, they lived in a little – I guess you’d call it a coal camp – in Winton, and then we moved to Lovell, and we were there for a couple of years, and then we moved to Cokeville, Wyoming, where we spent seven years. When I was twelve, we moved to Rock Springs. So I graduated from high school in Rock Springs. SL: Were you an only child? JJ: No, I have a brother who’s twenty-two months younger than I, and a sister who’s eight years younger than I. SL: So you were the oldest. JJ: Yes. SL: Were there any classes in high school that made you decide to study nursing? 2 JJ: No. My mother was a nurse, as was – her brother was a doctor. And I don’t remember ever entertaining any other career field. It was just a foregone thing that I was going to be a nurse. So I took chemistry in high school. SL: Why did you select St. Benedict’s? JJ: My uncle had a physician friend who’d done a fellowship at several of the hospitals in Salt Lake, and he had done one at St. Mark’s and one at Holy Cross and one at St. Benedict’s. He thought that St. Benedict’s was the place I should go. So even though I was accepted at all three, that’s where I went. SL: What was your first impression upon entering nurses’ training? JJ: I thought about that, and the first night after my parents dropped me off, I had never seen a nun except at the parochial school in Rock Springs, and I wondered what my parents had left me to. They were a foreign entity to me. SL: Now, are you Catholic? JJ: No, I’m LDS. SL: So why St. Benedict’s, then? JJ: Just because that’s where Dr. Yednak thought that was a good place to go. And then my mother was a nurse, so she knew some of the St. Benedict’s graduates from working at the hospital in Rock Springs, and so she thought they were good nurses, and that was one of her criteria. Instead of going to a University program, I was to go to a diploma program, because they were good nurses. SL: Right. Who was your roommate? JJ: Actually, I had three. My first roommate was Shirlene Hackworth, and she was ill-prepared to be a nursing student. Academically she did very well, but when it 3 came to working on the floor, she was just really spooked. Then I think she had a little OCD. I realized that as an adult. She was just a different girl, and she didn’t last – she left. Then one of the radiology technician students who was from Rock Springs and I shared a room until she finished, because their program was just two years. Then my last roommate was Penny Chrisman. SL: How many entered in your graduating class? JJ: I think there were thirty. SL: Thirty – and how many finally graduated? JJ: Well, there were twenty-one graduates, but there were two who had – let’s see. Carol Jeppson had gone to St. Mark’s and had left the program, I don’t know why, but she transferred, so she graduated with us. Then Mary Holden had been with a class at St. Benedict’s several years before and had married and had a family and then she came back and finished with us. We weren’t as close to her as we were with the ones who had done the whole show with us. SL: How were your interactions with your roommates? Did you get along? JJ: My first roommate, I felt no regret when she left… she was a really odd little duck. She used to clean like fury on Saturday. Then she’d stack everything at the bottom of the bed the rest of the week, and I always worried that she was going to be killed by all of the junk falling on her. So she was fine, but she was kind of a scared little rabbit. The other two I got along with fine. SL: Do you have any funny stories that involve your roommates or classmates? JJ: We were laughing about some of those at our reunion the other day. Well, they weren’t my classmates, but I remember one night Sister Boniface, who was the 4 bane of everybody’s existence, called because we were behaving abominably. She had a voice that kind of sounded like she had a cleft lip at one time. She said something to the effect of, did we realize that we were only fifty yards from people who were ill and injured, and she thought we’d have more consideration. She went on and on and on – and, yes sister, no sister, and then I stationed myself at the head of the hall telling everybody exactly what she said, using the same voice she used, and she walked out of the sister’s quarters which adjoined. I spent about an hour in Sister Berno’s, the director’s office, explaining that one away. SL: Yeah, I bet. Who were some of your classmates? JJ: Well, let’s see. Pat Erickson, Connie – was Ferguson – Minnoch, Roberta Mohlin, Penny Chrisman, Frances Greigo, she’s now Duncan – Evelyn Krimm Nielson, DJ Dean, LouAnn Marocchi, Sylvia Simoncini – Sylvia and I go back to the seventh grade, because she and I went to high school together. She’s from Rock Springs. Darlene Baird, Peggy Miller, who is now deceased, and then of course Carol Jeppson joined us at the end of the program, and Esther Ureibe was a classmate. I don’t think I’ve left out many. SL: Did you ever get caught breaking any rules? JJ: I never did that. There were some who did, and one of the girls who entered the program never finished because she was sneaking in and out. She was having a very active social life. So the sisters washed her out of the program. SL: Was there any difference between Catholic girls and, say, the LDS girls? 5 JJ: You know, I thought there might be, but I remember Sister Estelle was my personal advisor, and one night she called and I said, “Oh, we were just leaving for Mutual.” And she said, “That’s fine, we can meet another time.” They were very gracious about it. Sister Berno insisted we go to prayers every morning, and I used to go once a month just to appease her, but the Catholic kids had to go to some program like three times a week, a class. But they didn’t ever say anything about the Mormon kids. SL: How did the sisters interact with you guys as students? JJ: Well, they were – Sister Estelle was my personal advisor. Sister Berno I think got to know us pretty well, she was the Director. Most of them were in an administrative capacity. We did have a nun in our class, Sister Rita, who has since left the convent and she’s now Marie Ilg. She was also in our class, I forgot her. But mainly they were in a supervisory or administrative capacity, and most of them were a little intimidating. SL: Did they participate in activities with you? JJ: They used to have banquets, and they always served fried chicken. So we followed their example and ate it with a knife and fork, and then immediately following we piled in someone’s car and went to the Blue Onion to have a hamburger to stave off starvation. SL: Did you ever go up the canyon? JJ: Occasionally. Sister Mary Gerald used to play tennis with some of us. They used to have a picnic up the canyon every once in a while, but they didn’t really interact with us regularly, you know, as far as activities went. 6 SL: What were some of your favorite classes, and why? JJ: I don’t remember any that were my favorite. I can remember that we had a class in dermatology from Dr. Utterback, who had a monotone. It was excruciating, because he never varied the tone of his voice the whole lecture. Sister Mercy was our preceptor for that class, and I think one time she went to sleep and practically fell out of her chair. She wasn’t alone, there were several others who fell asleep. We had a teacher for chemistry whose name I don’t remember – one of the sisters – and she was most gracious, because some of us didn’t do too well in chemistry, and she was willing to tutor us until she knew that we knew what we were doing. SL: Now, did you have both sisters, doctors, and civilians as teachers? JJ: Actually, the only civilian we had as a teacher was a gal who came and taught us sociology, and I think she had a private practice in town. I don’t remember – well, we had an instructor or two who were civilians, but mostly it was nuns and doctors. SL: Okay. Did you ever play any pranks on them? JJ: No. SL: No? Who were some of the doctors you worked with while you were in training? JJ: Oh, gee. I remember Dr. Grua, who was a surgeon. I don’t remember that many of the doctors’ names. SL: Was Dr. Swindler still around? JJ: Oh, yes, Dr. CM, who called me the Rock Springs Flash. He scared me to death. You know, we did a lot more of the surgery rotation than they do now – in fact, I 7 doubt that the students at BYU even get to the operating room, or they observe one day. We were taught how to scrub, we took call – I remember the little lady who was the circulator, one of the circulators, whose son was on the medical staff, so that tells you how old Cora was. I swear to this day, I don’t think Cora ever flashed anything as long as it was supposed to be. It’s a wonder everybody didn’t die of an infection. Then there was Dr. Howe, who was a surgeon, who was very intimidating. I remember him. Dr. VanHook was a neurosurgeon, I remember scrubbing with him. Dr. Jorgensen was an OB/GYN. There was a Dr. Nelson that was an OB/GYN, he had some initials that I don’t recall. Then one of my roommates was a rad tech student, so I remember Dr. Matthey who was head of radiology. But don’t remember a lot of the doctors. SL: What would you and your classmates do if you had a night off? JJ: We’d take the 27th Street bus and go to – we went to Keeley’s a lot for dinner. We went to the movies – there were two students who had a car, so occasionally we’d go with them someplace. To the Blue Onion was our favorite, and then there was a Combe’s drive-in someplace down in North Ogden, that we used to go to. Hamburgers were our focus. But we didn’t have a lot of extra cash, so we didn’t really do a lot of things. Now, when Penny was my roommate, we used to go- we could get student tickets and go to the symphony, so we went to the symphony. Then, Ballet West came to Ogden High occasionally, so we’d go to that. But we usually had a pretty heavy load, so we didn’t leave campus a lot. SL: Do you remember any traditions at St. Benedict’s, like around holidays? 8 JJ: The thing I remember is that the nursing staff got holidays off, and we got the holy days. So we were available for holidays. SL: So you had to work. JJ: Yes. SL: So you didn’t get to go home much. JJ: Well, actually we did. They were pretty lenient. I remember going home one Christmas, but that’s when we were on affiliation. We went from – I think Denver, if I remember correctly, and I likened it unto a refugee, because I had to sit on my suitcase. Things were pretty packed. And we had to, of course, take the train. In those days, there wasn’t that much plane traffic; we took the train. SL: What rotation in the hospital was your favorite? JJ: Well, I loved surgery. In fact, on the last day of surgery, Sister Edicta told me to go finish – I was on call, so we used to go in and scrub until eleven o’clock, and then we were free until three, and we either finished cases or did preps. I went in, and she said, go finish the appy in B. So I went in and finished the appy, and it was the girl who was to follow me in surgery. So the sisters asked me, since I had requested surgery as my senior experience, if I wanted to do my senior experience ahead of time. So I was already trained, so I did six months in surgery. SL: What was your least favorite? JJ: Psych. I used to think a swift kick in the butt and a job would do wonders for most of them. I didn’t really ever like psych. SL: Now, was your psych rotation at the hospital? 9 JJ: We were at Hastings State Hospital in Nebraska. It was interesting, but I really didn’t take to it. SL: Do you remember anything about when you went on affiliations? Like to Denver for the Children’s Hospital, or to Hastings? JJ: Yes. There were five of us who went to Denver. Sister Rita was included, and it was an interesting time for her, because there were no other Catholic ecclesiastics at Denver Children’s. She was to go to St. Joe’s to Mass every morning, and I’m afraid that Chrisman and I corrupted her as much as we could. It was an interesting time. I remember in Denver they had an instructor, Kay Thompson, and she was former military, and everybody was intimidated by her. I remember one day I had this little patient who was in a ward – and the wards were glassed in – so I very carefully put up the screen to give this child a bath, and the scourge came in and said, “Ms. Johnson, do you realize that you’re giving this child a bath in front of God and everybody?” I hadn’t put a screen up in the hall. That did not occur to me. I scurried for another screen immediately. She was the terror of Children’s Hospital. SL: Sister Rita was already a nun when she entered nurses’ training? JJ: Yes. SL: So she stayed with the sisters on their half of the dorm, not with the nurses? JJ: Yes. But see, when we went to Denver, she was just down the hall from us. She was in a private room, we were in a double room, so she interacted with us a lot more than she would have if we’d stayed at St. Ben’s. SL: She had a little more freedom? 10 JJ: Oh, yes. I’ll never forget one time – she was very shy around people that she didn’t know, and she wanted a new bra one time. So we went to Denver, to May D&F. She said to Penny, “I’ll tell you what I want if you’ll pick it out.” She didn’t want to deal with the salespeople. So Penny said (loudly), “Now what size did you say?” See – we did semi-corrupt Sister Rita. SL: Do you remember any experiences while you were on the floor that happened with patients you cared for? Do you have a favorite patient or a most memorable patient? JJ: Well, one that was intimidating is Sister Mary Margaret, who was the administrator, had a friend who was a patient. I was assigned that patient that day, so I was doing everything extra. I went to tighten the draw sheet, and it was rather worn. I leaned back and pulled on it, and it ripped in half. There I sat, on the radiator, clutching the draw sheet. We had a patient on the medical floor who was a cancer patient, and he was there until his death. Nowadays, you know, he’d have been in a nursing home. His name was Adolph Miller. He was as ornery a human as I’ve ever encountered. He used to throw the lotion bottle at the urinal; I think he had some money. The nuns catered to him. I remember he used to get a shot of whiskey every night, and he had creamed brains for meals, which was unnerving to me, but yes, I remember him. Not too many other patients stand out. When you only did a three-month rotation, you didn’t ever interact with the same patients that many times. They were bound to give you a range of experiences. 11 SL: Who was your favorite doctor when you worked surgery? JJ: Actually, I didn’t have any favorites. You know, the sisters assigned you who you were going to work with. You just did. SL: What were your impressions of the doctors? JJ: There were some of them that were – I’ll never forget one night we were doing surgery and Dr. Howe put a skin clip on his skin and said “Here, hold this.” Well, I was the only one scrubbed, so I threaded my finger through it. By the time we finished the surgery I had a cramp in my finger, and he just bellowed, “Dammit Johnson, we’re up here to operate, not to wrestle.” Yes, that went well. SL: When and where was your capping ceremony held? JJ: It was held in the cafeteria at the hospital, and it was – I think after six weeks, or was it six months? Anyway, it was a big deal, because you got your cape, which I still have in a closet downstairs. I haven’t worn it, it was a needless expense, but I have one. It’s kind of comical today, because a cap – most people who are nurses today don’t know what a cap is. SL: Never seen one, much less worn one. JJ: Well, and there was a nurse at the hospital who needed one, a new one, so I gave it to her, so I don’t even have an example any more. Because I worked in the recovery room, and we wore scrubs, so I didn’t ever wear a cap. SL: What do you remember most about that ceremony? JJ: Just that it was very solemn – it was very important to us, because we figured we’d earned those caps, by George. It was very scripted. You know, your parents or grandparents or whoever came. You had a candle – I remember somebody 12 saying “Oh, my candle went out,” and that became a joke after – if things weren’t going well, or somebody was hating it, “I think my candle went out.” SL: So after your capping ceremony is when you were allowed on the floor? Is that correct? JJ: Yes. SL: Where was your graduation held? JJ: At St. Joseph’s. SL: What do you remember about that? JJ: Well, it was once again, very solemn. I dug out the picture right before I retired because my administrative directors’ secretary was doing ‘do you know who this is’, and we all had roses – I don’t know, there was a dozen or six, but we carried and we had uniforms, and I remember they were the very first of the polyester and you had to take them out and air them because they stank to high heaven. You know, we had a processional and the whole nine yards, so it was quite the event. SL: And the Father… JJ: The Bishop – you had to kiss the Bishop’s ring. I remember one of my classmates who was extremely distraught by that, and I said, “Oh, honey, play the game.” SL: Who handed you the diplomas? Was it Sister Berno? JJ: You know, I don’t remember. That was fifty years ago. SL: Yes, understandable. Now, was there a big reception afterwards? JJ: Yes, there was. 13 SL: After graduation, did you stay at St. Benedict’s? JJ: No, I started at LDS Hospital shortly thereafter. SL: What about the rest of your nursing career? JJ: Well, I worked at LDS for about a year, and then my aunt was the executive director of the YWCA in Fresno, California. They had a residence camp, and they were looking for a nurse. Always before, they’d had a camper’s mother, and they ran into the “I don’t have to do that, my mother’s the nurse.” So they wanted somebody who had no relationship to any of the campers, was I interested? So I went and was the camp nurse, and that was a great assignment. I ran around in Bermudas and a sweatshirt all summer. Had some interesting experiences. Then I decided that I wanted to stay in Fresno, so I got a job at St. Agnes, which coincidentally was run by the sisters of the Holy Cross. I knew kind of why Dr. Yednak had told me to go to St. Benedict’s shortly after I worked with them. I worked with them until camp the next year, and then I went back to camp. The first year, the father of one of the campers was a pediatrician, and he asked me if I’d be willing to work with him, with diabetic kids, and kids with asthma, so they could have the camp experience. So we had – I think six of each. I had to watch the diabetic kids’ diet, make sure they took their medication, same with the asthma patients, but we were able to have kids who came to camp and had a good experience. Had one asthma attack that the kids told me to run, and I said, if I’m dead when I get there I’m not going to do her any good. But we had no incidents, so it worked out well. Then, after camp the second year, I got a job at Sierra Hospital. It was owned and operated by osteopathic physicians, and 14 it was interesting because some of the older guys were a little scary. The newer guys had the same curriculum as MDs, and of course they had MDs on the staff. It was only fifty beds, and when I worked Sundays I did everything but take money. They had no dietician, so I had to check with the cook to see what the diets were going to be, and if an emergency came in you did the emergency. If a delivery came in, you hoped that there was somebody to do the delivery. It was very educational. I went to camp the third year, and while I was at Sierra I was working with the students from Fresno City College, which was a two-year nursing program. They said, why didn’t I go back and finish my degree, and then go back and help them. So in February of ’65 I came to Provo and enrolled at BYU. I tried to mesh what I had with what BYU offered, and I soon discovered that if you were going to be in the BYU program, you needed to start from scratch, because they didn’t intersect well. About that time, I was working four p.m. to eight p.m. in the recovery room at Utah Valley, and the head nurse was leaving for another job. So I got the job, and I never looked back. Later Weber brought the healthcare management program to Utah Valley. I remember we ate copious numbers of french fries and had classes from Dr. Bill Smith and Dr. Phil Smith. I finished that program. I never did finish my B.S. I got to Accounting and decided that it was not my cup of tea. But I do have the certificate, having finished the program from Weber’s Healthcare Management, and found it very, very useful. SL: So did you end up – did you retire from Utah Valley? JJ: Yes, I retired the last day of 2004. 15 SL: You’d worked in the recovery room the entire time? JJ: Well, early on I had done some house supervision, and then one summer I worked weekends in the emergency room. I was working in the emergency room when the ski lift at Timphaven, which is now Sundance, broke, and they brought it I don’t know how many people who were broken. It was an interesting time. So I had a variety of experiences. Then of course, when they made me the nurse manager, I got in on all the administration meetings and all of that. SL: Great. Well, thank you, Janet, for letting me come and talk to you today.