Page 7 - With Lottie Morrison from Gabarus

ISSUE : Issue 40

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1985/8/1

town, and I was living out on Park Street. And on my way home, she said, "Well, if you teach many more years at Ashby, you're going to be like (the lady) who taught up at Argyle Street for years and more years. And they say she has a hump on her back from walking up the hill." There was a lit? tle hill at Ashby, too. And she said, "That's just what's going to happen to you." So, walking back to Park Street, I thought to myself, "That's exactly what will hap? pen to me. As soon as I get home, I'm go? ing to write to hospitals." And I wrote to 8 different hospitals. I never told one living soul. I said to myself, "The first hospital that accepts me--that is where I'm going," So, in today's mail, I got a letter from New York. Tomorrow I got one from Halifax, And I said the first one, so I went (to New York). Then I had to tell my parents. Oh, they felt terrible, going too far away. Oh, terrible, terrible. But I went. I'd never been beyond Halifax. I'll never forget--of course, the only way to get to New York then was by train. And when I got to Grand Central Station--the mobs of people! I wished I'd never left Gabarus. So I got a cab and--scared to death, you know. And I thought the station was so far from the hospital. I thought, "I guess the driver is taking me some place of ill fame or something, I'll never see Gabarus again." And then I saw the name of the hospital carved in the stone. So I was all right. I never had one un? pleasant moment. (You studied to be a nurse • ) Well, I wanted to be a doctor. And my father was very anxious that I should, but my mother, no. Mother wouldn't hear of it, I would have preferred to be a doctor. I trained in the Roosevelt Hospital. I want to tell you, it wasn't easy. Because I had to start studying all over again. And it was very different. We worked very, very hard. All our classes were on our time, not on hospital time. The hospital profited by that. We gave a lot of our time to the hospital. That was all right. You thought nothing of it. That was it. At that time you went on duty at 7 in the morning, and at 7 in the evening you were through, with 2 hours off in the daytime, that was all. Never a Sunday off. Never had a whole day. One week we would work Sunday morning, the next week we would work Sunday afternoon. That's the way it went. And lights out at 10 o'clock. One night a week, late permission. Never on a Sunday, Never an overnight. We never thought of asking for an overnight. That would be, well I suppose, dismissal. And if a nurse married, when I was in training, it was instant dismissal. When I taught school it was the same. (The nurses were all living together then.) In the nurses' home, not in the hospital. But it was attached. (So you didn't have a little apartment in New York City.) Oh no, no, no, no. And we never, never went on the street in uniform. Never. Even in my time, the changes that I have seen. I was in the hospital when they started using radium. I was in the hospi? tal when the cobalt came in, all that sort of thing. Even the different type of in? struments. Gloves, for instance. The gloves the doctors wore--they weren't dis? posable. Thermometers weren't disposable. The tubing, when you gave a blood transfu? sion or anything, the nurses had to wash that tubing so carefully, and sterilize it. We made all our own solutions, the glucose and saline and everything--the student nurses did that. We'd sterilize them. We washed the gloves; patched them. Of course, the attending doctor never wore a patched Herring Choker Deli At NYANZA, on Hwy 105 between Whycocomagh & Baddeck natural foods ''j'" Indian Bay Bakery Isle Royale Beverages Ltd. It's the realtiung. Coke, /asisjfi Midway Motors Ltd. Middle River R. R. No. 3. Baddeck Victoria Co., N. S. BOE IBO 295-2290 I Local Dealer for '?? CHRYSLER Products. Aries SE 4-door Sedan is shown Your authorized COCA-COLA bottler 564-8130 * 245 WELTON ST., SYDNEY, N. S. * 526-4439 H" SYHNEYi The Official Drink of the'SYDNEY BICENTENNIAL HIGHLAND FLING Shop of Interest Many exclusive items in our large selection of quality crafts & souvenirs Soapstone & Wood Carvings Bluenose Models ' Decorative Butterflies Leathercraft & Moccasins Paintings, Prints & Cards Handknit Sweaters Kodak Take your memories home on Kodak film PLEASANT BAY-THE JEWEL OF THE CABOT TRAIL'

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