The Beginning of Being a Duke Nurse

My First View of Duke
It has not changed from 1953 until now. This is a recent picture.

My story of Nursing begins before my journey through the Duke School of Nursing.  We all had our dreams and went through the process of building that dream.  So it was with me.  I arrived at the decision to be a nurse from a very predictable way. In the fifties things were very predictable. 

 For GIRLS the path was dictated by what your family was or had.   If you had money you majored in liberal arts of some sort. You were expected to find a husband while experiencing college. You were then expected to be married in June following graduation with all your sorority sisters for bridesmaids. You had a long and exciting honeymoon, set up housekeeping and had your first child within a year or so.   If you came from a very educated family you were frequently a teacher.  You too found your husband, got married at graduation, and so on.  You usually went to Women's College in Greensboro, Meredith in Raleigh, or another reputable girls school.  Mostly you did not go out of state if you were a true North Carolinian.    If you had no money but positively motivated, you became a secretary. You got married and stayed home in most of these scenarios.  If you had no money and hadn't gotten married in high school, you went to work as a waitress, in the local factory, or a number of other hourly wage jobs or stayed home and had babies. Then there were a number of girls with no money and didn't get married in high school who packed their bags and went off to nursing school which was free.  Nursing schools were free because you not only learned but put in hours of free labor for the hospital.  You graduated in three years and were able to take an exam to be a licensed registered nurse.  In North Carolina there were a lot of really good schools.  Watts in Durham, Rex in Raleigh, Presbyterian in Charlotte were the best schools but there were a lot of little hospitals that had respectable programs.

I did  dream of being a famous artist with although I did not know one and did not have a clue how you might get there. It  was my most passionate vision.  I did not have a mentor that would encourage me in that direction.  I did dream of being a Girl Scout professional, because I loved the outside and the hiking, canoeing, swimming that was emphasized that life.  I had been a counselor at a girl scout camp, Old Mill in Whitsett, NC, and loved every minute. It took a degree to be one, and I knew I would not be college bound.  I dreamed of romance and a family, but there were no real prospects for this to happen.   

Life predicts the next step we take.  In my first year of high school, Greensboro Senior High (now Grimsley) there was an announcement over the intercom.  Wesley Long Hospital was seeking nursing assistants.  You needed to go and apply at the hospital.  My grandparents had reared me and I always wanted to give back or at least help.  They were not well off but gave me everything I needed.  I asked my grandfather to take me and I applied.  I did lie about my age.  You needed to be 16 and I was only 15.  I got the job and worked on weekends, holidays and some of each summer.  I loved having all the attention of the nurses and doctors.  I apparently showed real promise in the medical field.  One of the physicians, Dr. Joe Stevens, our family doctor, encouraged me.  He felt I should go to Duke and be a doctor.  OH MY, never in my wildest dreams did I think I could do that.  He was president of the Medical Alumni and assured me that if I wanted I could do it.  as it turned out, I was accepted at Duke and the Medical Association in Greensboro gave me tuition.  However, having no vision at all, I talked with him about becoming a nurse.  He was not pleased but asked me to just go to Duke for a year and if I still wanted to be a nurse to transfer over to the nursing program. I was accepted and assigned to a dormitory.  Again, not really knowing what I was turning down, I asked him if they would help me through the Duke School of Nursing.  He was again not pleased  but said if I was determined to be a nurse at least I must be a Duke Nurse.

You can barely see the window on the third floor where I started my career. My roommate Pat Sinette from West Virginia and I had binoculars and watched the guys across the street in the Graduate Center.  The trees were not even there. They planted little ones about a year after I moved in.  This was home for four years.

So as summer gave way to the fall of 1953, I packed my bags and headed for Durham and Duke.