Voices of the Past
Oral Histories from Graham Hospital School of Nursing

In 2004, following a lively and informative conversation with the oldest surviving graduate of the Graham Hospital School of Nursing, the preservation of her reminiscences became a goal of the School. With the help and direction of a number of sources, including Alliance Library System and Sound Farm Productions, the School’s library staff began to investigate the feasibility of undertaking an oral history project to record the memories of its alumni with the aim to better understand not only the development of the School, but of the nursing profession in general. Funding from the Greater Midwest Region of the National Library of Medicine provided the training, encouragement and financial assistance to take the original idea from a glorified tape recorded conversation to a more professional quality production.

The goal of the project has been to interview ten graduates of each decade the School has been in existence. A list of questions was created to work from so that responses could be compared within each decade and trends and changes could be ascertained. To begin, invitations to interview were sent to the remaining thirteen alumni who had graduated between 1929 and 1939, resulting in eight wonderful interviews. While most were conducted in the library of the School in Canton, Illinois, others were recorded in Cary, Illinois, Columbia, Maryland and Norfolk, Virginia. All of the alumni were in their nineties. And with those willing and able voices, the project began. Stories flowed about sneaking out of dormitories, working for tuition, caring for patients with Vaseline and Lysol, starched uniforms, lessons with doctors, and dealing with catastrophes. There were many surprises and a plethora of information as these women wove a story of their own lives and the life of the School.

Since that beginning, more than eighty interviews have been recorded, either by telephone or in person, along with a number of written replies to the interview questions and other correspondence. The oral history project, in conjunction with the Images in Nursing Education effort to digitize the photographs and documents in the School’s historical collection, have provided a previously unseen glimpse of the history of a rural, diploma RN nursing program that has spanned the century. Combined, these efforts will document our history in a production to celebrate Graham Hospital School of Nursing’s 100th anniversary in 2009.

The Oral History Collection 1930-2009

1930-1939

Frances Brasel, 1933
Lois Knickerbocker Watts, 1933
Edith Malmgren Beaver, 1937
Ethel Abbudusky Bowton, 1937
Kathryn Barclay, 1938
Bee Ryno Dominski, 1938
Helen Rogers Polich, 1938
Lorene Werry McMunn, 1939

1940-1949

Bernita (Reffett) Murphy 1941
Marian Jones 1942
Annabelle (Wilcoxen) Breckenridge 1943
Helen Howard Saunders 1943
Freda Blair 1945
Violet Wages 1945
Louise Byrum 1947
Annabell Curless 1947
Martha Stockberger 1948
Myrlene (Widger) Swinger 1949

1950-1959

Caroline Stine 1950
Frances Gibble Wright 1950
E. Lorraine Hinds 1951
Elsie Berk 1952
Caryl Harrison 1953
Gertrude Geier Schoon 1953
Eleanor Taylor 1954
Dorothy Haynes 1955
Jeanine Green 1956
Mary Jane Mathews 1959

1960-1969

Karen McLain Geysbeck 1961
Mary Wagner 1961
Carolyn Sue Wolf 1961
Carol Welch 1966
Susan Livingston 1968

1970-1979

Arthalene Widger 1974
Cindy Brown 1978

1980-1989

1990-1999

Sheila Huggins 1996

2000-2009

Heather Martin 2000