At age seventeen, I entered Baylor Hospital School of Nursing in Dallas, Texas. I was so excited. I met my roomate on the day of arrival, August 11, 1943. She was away from home for the first time, too. Her mother could not come so she became a part of my family. We selected a room on the second floor of thie big house, which housed all the freshmen students. It was a residence with bedrooms only and baths that shared per floor.

We had classes from 8 Am to 4 pm every day. About 5 weeks after we started they put us on the floors at night to work. I worked in the Obstetrics wing taking care of post-partum patients. There was a routine which we followed. Bedpans, babies coming out to nurse, and passing fresh water. Not any special skills were needed for this activity. Just watch for bleeding and pain and give notice to the charge nurse. All patients stayed 5 days and were sent home in an ambulance with their baby. This was accepted practice in 1943-44. It was unheard of to get out of bed after the baby came for even the bathroom. Bedpans were the norm. The hospital had tunnels under it going from one building to the other. Our Nurses Home connected to the main Hospital as well as to the Maternity Hospital. So we could travel from one to the other without ever going outside. It was great when it was bad weather. I wonder what they did with those tunnels when they build the new hospital over it. All of the original hospital that I worked in is gone. the only building left is the Library which was on Gaston Avenue and that may be gone by now. The new Hospital is now the Truitt Hospital and is very large and spans about three blocks. the Nurses home has been torn down and a new one built You would not know it was the same place. that is “progress”.   From there we continued class and sleep was not much of an option. Then we began working from 7:00 Am to 9:00 AM to bathe patients on the wards. That meant if we had breakfast we had to be over to the dining room by 6:30 and to the wards by 7:00. At 9:00 Am we went to class until noon; grab a bite of lunch and go to the wards and serve trays from 12 to 1 PM and back to class at 1:30. Study was hard as we had to study at night. Lights were out at 8:00 PM. Many times we had to study under the covers of the bed with a gooseneck lamp to be ready for class the next day. It is a wonder we didn’t have a fire. We did scorch a blanket one time and had to get rid of the smoke and not tell anyone. By this time we were also going back after class and working from 4:30 to 11 PM on the wards. Junior Students were expected to man the wards all the afternoons from 4:30 to 11 PM. When the next class came in, they did the noontime duties on the wards and we were “promoted to the afternoon work”. We worked 6 days a week too. Only Sundays (if we could swing it) we could be off.

I would catch the Interurban(an electric car like a street car that traveled from Dallas on North and South routes every 30 minutes day and night. I could go done anytime and catch it to go home to Hillsboro and Mother and Daddy would meet me there. It was always good to go home for the weekend. I would not get off until after 3 PM on Saturday and had to be back by 10:30 on Sunday night, but I could be home and go to church on Sunday and get back on time in the evening. Sometimes your charge nurse would let you off a little early to get away, sometimes not.   When we were capped in the spring of 1944 and actually became Junior Students, we got our “Fischers” which were the bibs to the aprons we had worn the PRE-clinical days. So now we had a blue checked dress with stiff white collars and cuffs (and I do mean stiff, they could stand alone and sure could blister your neck), aprons and fischers with black Cantilever Shoes and black stockings. No nylons either; just what they called Lyle or rayon that you wore with a garter belt. Of course, our caps were our pride and joy. That also meant that the freshmen (PRE-clinical) had to let us get on the elevator first. Yes, we had priority then.   We were then allowed to stay out until 11 PM on Saturday nights and 10:30 on Sundays. Church was about the only place we could go except to town occasionally to shop. We walked to town (now this is walking about 10 blocks across the railroad into the main part of the downtown Dallas).However we thought nothing of this procedure. I did very little dating as our schedules were so intense that we had no time really to make dates. the schedules were put out weekly and you had to get someone to work for you if you had to change. It was not easy to get anyone to work for you as everyone was pushed to the fullest to get the work and studying done in order to make good graded and that was my plans.

Working on the wards was such pleasure as we were finally doing something and being a nurse. We were giving medications and sometimes were in charge of a whole floor. The wards were not too big with the exception of the charity wards. those wards had women and one large room and men in another. Many of the patients were orthopedic charity cases who had been there a long time. Most of the other rooms in the hospital were private rooms. there were occasional semi-private rooms. The wings of A, C, and D were about 15 rooms each, some larger , some smaller. Doctors made round with a nurse always and would not go without a nurse. They were jovial and knew most of us by name.There were a lot of older doctors as many of the younger ones had joined the service and gone. We had around 100 students working on the wards all the times. Most of the R.N.’s had gone to serve in the War Effort so the students, basically, manned the hospital. The supervisors and teachers were all R.N.’s as most were older and had families or were single. Most of all the Senior Nurses were in charge of floors and had to make the schedules out for the Pre-clinicals and Junior students. You were their teachers. They had Nursing classes, but the older students were their basic teachers. There were too many students for the teachers to observe them all the time. So those in charge had to watch the younger students that they didn’t make mistakes. You ask questions if you didn’t know what to do. Everyone was very helpful and good to work with the younger students.

Our Senior year, which for me began in the summer of 1945. I had finished all my classes and had grades good enough that they put me with the June group of our class (there were three groups, one June group, one

August and one September group). I was allowed to take classes with them in the summer so that I could take my State Boards in the Spring. They had to graduate in June to complete the three full years of school It was required that you spend 36 months before you could graduate. Therefore I finished all my classwork in the fall of 1945 and took State Boards with the June Class and didn’t have to go to class any of the last several months. It was a two day test and we went over to St Paul’s Hospital in Dallas to take the test.

During my last year, I worked nights as the PRN Nurse. This was composed of taking supplies from the Central Supply to the wards, getting Narcotics from the Pharmacy for the wards, helping with IV’s being given and sometimes starting IV’s for the Resident on Call so he could sleep a little while. They worked round the clock when they were on and if there were a lot of emergencies they were busy for hours at a time. IV’s were not given as much then as they are now. They were given only to people who were very dehydrated or had a particular need for fluids. I also made round to all the wards to see if they had problems or needed any help. In March of my Senior year I became engaged so it was also an exciting time. I was able to graduate July 19 as we could take our three week vacation time at the end of our stay or work and take it later. I had only missed five days during my three years there so had only five days to make up to account for my 36 months. We had graduation in June, and it was held at the First Baptist Church in Dallas. I worked until July 19 and Harry came to pick me up and take me to Itasca to get ready for our wedding. It was only a month away at that time. The days at Baylor were one of the most gratifying of my life. There was a lot of hard work, but I was doing what I felt God wanted me to do.

There were some fun times too. When Gwen and Marge across the hall from us had stayed out too late on a date and we had to pull them in through the ground floor window. There were BSU parties several times especially the annual banquet which we had. I was active in the choir at the Gaston Avenue Baptist Church when I could. I took voice lessons from a lady in the church for a while, but it became impossible to continue with the schedule I had to keep at work.

We came in contact with many people who are remembered well. I remember one man who was stiff from his feet to his neck because of Arthritis. You had to move him like a piece of lumber as his whole body was one piece. His head and arms were all he could move. The Arthritis was so bad, he had to have complete body care. There was the little black boy over at the Childrens Hospital, who had no parents and had surgery and we couldn’t keep a diaper on him; the little boy with Leukemia which we had no treatment for except blood transfusions. Then there was the time I spent in Surgery. We had to spend 3 months in the Surgery and observe and scrub on all different kinds of surgery, from tonsils to brain surgery. The wards where the rich people stayed had round the clock special care. One lady who had cancer who smelled of “Yankee Clover” cologne (I could never like it since); the lady who had to be bathed daily and then a whole body rub with lanolin cream in a room as big as there was in the hospital; the guys and ladies in the wards who had no family to come and see them. You could visit with and try to help when you could. Those things always stand out in your mind.

As I look back on these wonderful days, it seems like a lifetime ago and so many things have changed. Our medical care today is like another world compared to those times. But after graduating in War Times, we had the best training available at Baylor Hospital and I will always be grateful to have gone to a large hospital where we were allowed to do everything from bathing a patient to caring for him after he died. I felt capable of doing anything and everything there was to do in a hospital when I was a new graduate. God was good to me and kept me well and able to do this and it was through his leadership it was possible. The scholarship of $250.00 given to me by the Club women of Hill County, Texas enabled me to get this education along with my wonderful parents who gave what they could to keep me there. It has been 54 years now and God has blessed me to be able to use this education all those years in our hospital here in Duncan Oklahoma.