Bringing My History to Duke: Part One

My experience at Duke began before I really got to campus. I had sent my application in after hours and hours of preparation and tears, and I had been ACCEPTED.  I was scared to death.  I had lived with my grandparents since I was three months old.  Except for two brief periods of my life I had been very loved, protected and safe.  I was a natural risk taker because of that security but also because I had been allowed to explore the acres and acres that made up Starmont Farm, property of Edward Benjamin.  I would study the ways of the birds, four footed friends, and even the bees with my Grandfather and even at a very young age alone.  What does this have to do with Duke School of Nursing?  Everything.  I was moving into a great big world of learning and competition.  The independence I had learned as a tiny wanderer in the many acres of woods around me as I grew up was to serve me well on the rather hostile and gigantic Duke Campus.

Air view of the Liggett and Meyers
factories that became a part of many trips from
West Campus to downtown.

I had impressed someone and was asked to submit an additional application to compete for a scholarship.  I hardly knew what a scholarship was, but I jumped right in.  I was selected as one of three finalist from western North Carolina. There were three finalist from Western, Central and Eastern North Carolina.  I still remember the bus ride to Durham.  It was only about sixty miles but it might as well have been thousands.  The bus station was located downtown.  . The  vivid memory of the smell of tobacco that burned my nose as we rode past the factory is still unbelievable.  I had been given money to take a cab to the newly built Hanes House on the West campus. There was JINNY JESSUP from Mount Airy and GAYLE CHANDLER from Charlotte who were my opponents.  I do not know who won but it wasn't me.  That did not keep us from being friends and really liking each other.  There was DERMA LAMBERT from Durham, PAT LARUE from Raleigh and one other from the central area.  Derma and I are still friends after 61 years and talk weekly. Pat and I also keep in touch.  You will hear more about Pat because she is responsible for introducing me to the love of my college life. I cannot for the life of me remember the others that were competing. Maybe one of my classmates will remember, read this and remind me. I do remember the love of Duke that was in my heart as I left to return home and wait for the results.  Those feelings have remained with me since that day to this.  I could not wait for late August when I was to return to the Campus to begin my life as a nurse.

Hanes House looked much like the drawing. No trees but spanking new for our class.

I arrived and was assigned a room and felt so very grown up.  I met eight others who were competing for scholarships.  There was JINNY


I have gotten ahead of myself.

Each person who made up the class of 1957, came to the School of Nursing with a different history. We all came with different motivation and experiences.  We were soon to learn that we were the first generic Baccalaureate in Science class to go through the four years of intensive program designed by the vision of those early leaders.  I came after having learned so much from three years of having worked as a nursing assistant at our local hospital, Wesley Long Hospital.  I did not realize how far ahead I was in nursing knowledge.  I certainly was not ahead in worldly ways.

Miss Taylor looked
 just as starched and
perfect every time
I saw her.

In our high school every morning there was an loud speaker blaring announcements.  So it was on a December day in 1950 when it was announced that nursing assistants were needed at Wesley Long.  I was just a bit too young but I talked to my Grandfather and begged him to take me for an interview.  The Director of Nursing, Miss Matthews, greeted me in her starched uniform, perky cap, and shiny white shoes--yes shiny.  I do not know why I was hired but it was not long before I began a wonderful five year association with the hospital and the nurses who gave me so many of the basics.  Some were good, others not so much.

I started my "education" by a imposing HILDA TAYLOR. Miss Taylor was trained at Johns Hopkins and gave me no leeway. She stood tall and very starched.

Lots of soap, lots of friction and
 sing the first verse of the star
 spangled banner!

She taught me to make a bed so that a quarter would bounce on its tightness.  I thought that I would wash every bit of skin from my hands as I carefully tended each patient. She was clear.  Wash them before you start care, if you soil them while you give care, and after you finish.  You must always wash them between each patient.  My grandparents were quite concerned when the green soap we used turned my hands a bright irritated red.

A typical room. This is the best image
I could find. Except that most of the
screens were white, not flowered,
it is pretty accurate

 Miss Taylor demanded that I make an empty bed with minimal effort and maximal efficiency.  This very simple lesson served me so well until this day.  You gathered the linens, placed them on the over-bed table and rolled the bed up to its greatest height. Beginning on the side nearest the door, you stripped the bed and placed the dirty linen in the bag you had placed at the foot of the bed.  You then went to the side of the bed furthest from the door, made the bed half way, walked to the other side and pulled all the linens tightly. Cased the pillows and you were done.  It should take you less than three minutes. You never retrace your steps.  I practiced until I broke that goal.  To this day it drives me crazy to watch young nurses walk back and forth,  make the bed in the lowered position, an generally wear themselves out in this simple act.  This was just the first lesson of many.