| How
did you get into nursing?
When I graduated from high school, my guidance counselor
(and I use the term loosely) asked me if I wanted to
be a teacher or a nurse. I remembered this nurse who
lived down the street and I’d watch her going
to work in her white uniform, white stockings and shoes,
carrying her cap and I could see myself doing that.
I also read the Cherry Ames novels so I had an idealistic
picture of what nursing was and that brought me into
the profession.
How did your book evolve?
In the mid-’90s, there were a number of daily
reading books. I though how nice it would be to have
something like that for nurses and invited my longtime
friend Melisa Moriarty to work with me. We had worked
together in public health at the Austin/Travis County
Health and Human Services Department in Texas in the
early ’60s.
Initially, we researched feasibility. Then we ran into
Vern and Bonnie Bulloughs’ American Nursing: A
Biographical Dictionary, which now runs into three volumes.
Vern encouraged us to pursue our vision, saying we could
use their research. Although we started in 1995, we
worked more diligently around the turn of the century.
During 2003, much of our time was spent gathering permission
for every quote.
There are many nurses listed: Where
did you find them all?
We started with the Bulloughs’ books, but then
we found Thelma Schorr and Anne Zimmerman’s book
Making Choices, Taking Chances: Nurse Leaders Tell Their
Stories. After that, we discovered Gwendolyn Safier’s
Contemporary American Leaders in Nursing: An Oral History.
Our greatest joy, though, was to read through old AJN’s
and other sources to discover nurses we had not previously
come across. The book would be incomplete without people
like Edith Cavell, Kathy Batterman or Henri Dunant.
Cavell was a British nurse convicted and executed as
a spy by the Germans during World War I because she
treated injured men regardless of nationality. Batterman
was a premier flight nurse who was on duty and died
in a helicopter crash. Dunant, co-winner of the first
Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, did work that led to what
became known as the International Committee of the Red
Cross.
We spent one summer in Washington, D.C., and were able
to work at the NIH library. There, we found a book called
Rural Nursing by Angelina Bushy with information about
Joanne Gladden, NP, a nurse who started a rural clinic
in North Dakota. She had a powerful quote about homelessness
and mattering to another person. These nurses were wonderful
discoveries.
Immense help came from the Sigma Theta Tau Distinguished
Writers Program. This program teams up nurses who want
to publish with nurses who are published.
Who is the earliest nurse? The most
recent?
The earliest was Hildegard of Bingem. She was a healer
who had a broad range of accomplishments and was absolutely
fascinating. She lived from 1098 to 1179 and was a musician,
among other things. You can still get her CDs today.
The most recent was Aurora Hernandez, a young migrant
worker who expressly went into nursing to help migrant
families. She has such a poignant quote, we had to put
it in.
One of my great disappointments is that we never were
able to find her to have her see what we were saying
about her. I don’t know where she is. I hope she
will contact us if she sees this.
What did you learn from writing this
book?
I learned a lot about research and the importance of
keeping better notes, but beyond that I learned so much
about nursing. We are powerful, versatile, innovative
and essential. Whatever the issue, nurses’ central
theme is what is best for the patient. This is the constant
concern. Nursing history needs to be part of all nursing
curricula, not necessarily a chronological history,
but especially the history of the issues we are facing
today. All of our current issues have been addressed
by nursing in the past.
Anything you want to add?
I am so grateful to the Sigma Theta Tau Distinguished
Writers Program. This is the part that made all the
difference. I really wish I could show our young people
the opportunities that are open to them through nursing.
I have to say that if I had to do it all again, without
a blink, I’d choose nursing.
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