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OH 1336
Eleanor Helmer
Introduction
The following is an interview with Eleanor Helmer for the Medicine Health Care and Nursing in Montana
oral History Project for the Montana Historical Society and this interview, Eleanor Helmer, discusses her
career as a nurse including her initial training with the Cadet Nurse Corp, employment experiences as a
nurse and later memories as operating nurse and Director of Nurses for the hospital in Lewistown,
Montana. The interview was conducted in the dining room of her home located at 711 Erie in 3:00 p.m.
The interviewer is John Terreo.
Interview
Tape 1 Side A
Terreo: Mrs. Helmer could you give us a little bit of background information about yourself. Who your
parents were and where you were born?
Helmer: I was born in Fergus, Montana. That's Fergus County, about forty miles outside of Lewistown. I
was probably one of those home deliveries. The doctor did come from Lewistown and attended the
birth. My grandfather was an Osteopath. Took his training down in Missouri somewhere and did that for
quite a few years.
Terreo: Was that Kirkville, Missouri?
Helmer: I would almost think it was and I bet I haven't got the book. Let me go and see if I can find it. I
know where there is a book. Let me see. At Christina. Went through the eighth grade there and then
came to Lewistown for my high school. I had an attack of appendicitis when I was about eight years old
and someone told my dad that if you got sassafras tea it would cure you. So he drove - road horseback
about three miles-
Terreo: Excuse me a second. You were saying when you were eight years old -
Helmer: I had an attack of appendicitis and someone told my dad that if you took sassafras tea that
would cure you and you wouldn't have to have your appendix out. So he rode about three miles on
horseback to get some sassafras tea from the neighbors. It didn't help but it did last six months before I
had my appendix out so I had my appendix out which was my first time remembering being in a hospital
and being around nursing, thinking this might be what I wanted to do when I grew up.
Terreo: Well tell me a little about your appendicitis attack. How far were you from the hospital?
Helmer: Probably forty miles.
Terreo: And what kind of transportation was available?
Helmer: A pick-up truck (laughs). We had gravel roads. We got mail at Christina once a day - Our regular
mail delivery. The stage came. We called it the stage not the bus. We never went to the doctor unless
there was something wrong. You didn't have regular checkups, that type, you know that was unheard
of. There was six in our family and I was the oldest. I had three brothers and two sisters. My folks were
farmers, ranchers. We went to school in a one room school house and I remember the coal stove an all
of those types ofthings. Had a good library.
Terreo: going back when they took you to the hospital, was that to St. Joseph's hospital here?
Helmer: And Dr. Gans operated on me. I was ten days in the hospital to have my appendix out and then
you very carefully left the hospital and went home and more or less stayed in bed for another month
without any activity. Now we get 'em up within three or four hours and they're walking and usually
Object Description
| Rating | |
| Title | Helmer, Eleanor Interview |
| Creator | John Terreo. Medicine, Health Care, and Nursing in Montana Oral History Project. |
| Description | Topics include her childhood health care in Fergus County; her training with the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps in Seattle; her work as a nurse in San Diego during the late 1940s; her relocation to Lewistown in 1952; her experiences as an obstetrics and surgical nurse and later Director of Nursing at St. Joseph's Hospital in Lewistown; changes in nursing education, individual attitudes, and salaries since 1948; the management of hospital nurses and other personnel; and liability insurance. |
| Date Original | 1990-06-22 |
| Physical format | |
| Genre | documents |
| Subject (keyword) | Nurses; |
| Subject (AAT) | Hospitals; Nurses; |
| Type | Text |
| Contributing Institution | Lewistown Public Library, Lewistown, Montana |
| Digitization Specifications | Canon MX310 300dpi |
| Geographic Coverage | Fergus County (Mont.); Lewistown (Mont.) |
| Digital Format | application/pdf |
| Rights Management | Copyright restrictions may apply. |
| Full text of this item | OH 1336 Eleanor Helmer Introduction The following is an interview with Eleanor Helmer for the Medicine Health Care and Nursing in Montana oral History Project for the Montana Historical Society and this interview, Eleanor Helmer, discusses her career as a nurse including her initial training with the Cadet Nurse Corp, employment experiences as a nurse and later memories as operating nurse and Director of Nurses for the hospital in Lewistown, Montana. The interview was conducted in the dining room of her home located at 711 Erie in 3:00 p.m. The interviewer is John Terreo. Interview Tape 1 Side A Terreo: Mrs. Helmer could you give us a little bit of background information about yourself. Who your parents were and where you were born? Helmer: I was born in Fergus, Montana. That's Fergus County, about forty miles outside of Lewistown. I was probably one of those home deliveries. The doctor did come from Lewistown and attended the birth. My grandfather was an Osteopath. Took his training down in Missouri somewhere and did that for quite a few years. Terreo: Was that Kirkville, Missouri? Helmer: I would almost think it was and I bet I haven't got the book. Let me go and see if I can find it. I know where there is a book. Let me see. At Christina. Went through the eighth grade there and then came to Lewistown for my high school. I had an attack of appendicitis when I was about eight years old and someone told my dad that if you got sassafras tea it would cure you. So he drove - road horseback about three miles- Terreo: Excuse me a second. You were saying when you were eight years old - Helmer: I had an attack of appendicitis and someone told my dad that if you took sassafras tea that would cure you and you wouldn't have to have your appendix out. So he rode about three miles on horseback to get some sassafras tea from the neighbors. It didn't help but it did last six months before I had my appendix out so I had my appendix out which was my first time remembering being in a hospital and being around nursing, thinking this might be what I wanted to do when I grew up. Terreo: Well tell me a little about your appendicitis attack. How far were you from the hospital? Helmer: Probably forty miles. Terreo: And what kind of transportation was available? Helmer: A pick-up truck (laughs). We had gravel roads. We got mail at Christina once a day - Our regular mail delivery. The stage came. We called it the stage not the bus. We never went to the doctor unless there was something wrong. You didn't have regular checkups, that type, you know that was unheard of. There was six in our family and I was the oldest. I had three brothers and two sisters. My folks were farmers, ranchers. We went to school in a one room school house and I remember the coal stove an all of those types ofthings. Had a good library. Terreo: going back when they took you to the hospital, was that to St. Joseph's hospital here? Helmer: And Dr. Gans operated on me. I was ten days in the hospital to have my appendix out and then you very carefully left the hospital and went home and more or less stayed in bed for another month without any activity. Now we get 'em up within three or four hours and they're walking and usually home in three or four days with a normal appendix which, you know, I just had a regular diseased appendix. Terreo: Well for an eight year old that must have been rather- Helmer: Real traumatic, real traumatic and yet something that I hadn't ever experienced or been in a hospital before. What I'm thinking is that's probably affected why eventually I went into nursing. I graduated from high school in 1945 and people say why did you go to Seattle to Providence Hospital to take your nurse's training? That was probably two-fold. As the oldest one in the family and knowing there were five sisters and brothers, I joined the Cadet Nurses (Cadet Nurse Corps) and that paid our way and we got eighteen dollars our second year and thirty-siX dollars the last year. They paid our transportation to Seattle and we were the last class of Cadet Nurses that they had. I didn't stay in Lewistown, Montana because my mother was forty-four, I think, before she'd ever gotten out of the state of Montana and she went to see her sister in Fairview (Montana) and her sister, Martha, took her across the line onto North Dakota so she could say that she'd been out of the state. I didn't want to be stuck in Lewistown, Montana. I went through three years of a diploma program at Providence Hospital and was married after I graduated and we went to San Diego. I worked at Mercy Hospital in San Diego while my husband was getting his teachers education. Terreo: Tell me a little but about how you applied for that and were accepted. Helmer: That came through the Guidance Counselor at the High School and I had - my girlfriend and I both signed up to go. I had an aunt in Seattle. I don't remember that we had a choice of where we were to go, you know. I had an Aunt out there which maybe had affected me. I don't remember that. I just remember going on the train at Harlowtown - catching the train at Harlowtown going to Seattle to go to nurses training. Terreo: How did you feel about going way over to Seattle? Helmer: Weill was real excited. I was eighteen years old and I was little and cute and I had the whole world ahead of me and I was going to get an education and I was exciting time. The train was full of Gl's and sailors and Seattle was the port and we had a marvelous time in nurses training. We still had to be in at ten o'clock at night. You got weekend passes once a month. No men allowed accept in the reception room downstairs. The nuns took real good care of you. Nursing now is completely different from that. They aren't in dorms like we were - we were -like I said, the doors were locked at ten o'clock. If you wanted in you had to ring the doorbell and they let you in. You had no key. Meals were served at a special time. We put in six hours of study and then we worked two to four hours on the floor as a nurse's aide. Well, application of what we were doing. We went through all of the divisions. I never got a vacation. I went in July. Graduated the fifteenth of June and went in training the first of July. I never got a vacation until the following August. So, I went fourteen months straight with not being home. I was awful homesick but it was still something that I really enjoyed and exciting, was excited about and I don't remember it being a bad thing of being away that long. My kids would have died had they had - if you would of said they were going to go to school. You know, we'll see you in thirteen months from now. I don't think they would have handled that real well. But at that time maybe we were more self-sufficient. As far as nursing goes and you think about that, there's a lot of changes compared to hands-on nursing that I think we've lost. Having raised two daughters that are nurses myself and encouraging them to get their degrees because I think it's real important that you have it. I don't think that you can get away from the fact that the three nurses kept things going while those four year nurses were getting educated. So I have a lot of feeling about that and there is quite a controversy about you know - everyone should be a degree nurse and you go back to the two year or the one year nurse associate degrees and that type of thing that are advocated by nursing today. Especially the Nursing Association. Terreo: Is this the Montana Association? Helmer: The Montana (Association) also the California (Association). I was a member of both those organizations. Montana is really pro degree. Right now in Lewistown, Montana there are as many two year nurses who have passed State Boards and are functioning as nurses as there are degree nurses up there. What's going to happen to these small hospitals when they say you have to have a degree in order to work there and be an RN (Registered Nurse). We have two schools of nursing in Montana. One in Glendive and one in Havre. I hope they keep up. I was sorry when the three year nursing went out. You know they say well three year nurses weren't as well educated but if you stop and think about it, we went thirty-six months straight. Degree nurses went nine months for four years. Off the summer, had the summers off to do what they wanted you know. And yet you're going to get a more well-rounded education with the degree. There's no getting around it. But, when I use to see those degree nurses come when I was head of the operating room and as a director of nursing, you know it was going to take a whole month before they were going to be a functioning nurse. When they got through they were going to be more well-rounded because they've got some of the arts that the three year nurse doesn't have. Maybe communication skills. Maybe how to conduct the interviews that type of thing. Where we three year nurses, as I look back, were the ones that squared the corners, gave the enemas and we did the whole thing. Terreo: Well, isn't there quite a bit of difference in the training that you received than what is being done today? For example didn't you, when you started out you spent some time in the classroom and then the same day you were out on the ward? Now today it's a very different situation. Helmer: Entirely different. Entirely different. They go Missoula, I mean to Bozeman for that first year and it's nothing but studies and then they go either to Great Falls or Billings to take their studies and then they go either to Great Falls along with their floor work or unit work but not as much as three year nurses. As I look back we were probably staffing the hospital because they were getting cheap labor. I don't mean cheap, cheap but it was, it was certainly a saving in money to know that at four o'clock the cadets were coming on and they would be there till eight o'clock and then we would usually have classes in the evening. A lot of times. Terreo: So you had classes during the morning... Helmer: And lots oftimes evening classes. Mainly because if a priest was teaching religion, which we were going to a Catholic... Terreo: So that was requirement? Helmer: That was a requirement in order to pass. You had to have an interpretation of how religion effected the patient. So the priest couldn't teach during the day because he and his regular classes at Seattle College so he would just be available to the nurses during the day because he had his regular classes at Seattle College so he would just be available to the nurses during the evening. I remember taking that in the summertime. Nice weather. Of taking religion and I don't remember that I did too good (laughs). But, I did alright. Terreo: Tell me a little bit about that too. I understand that training in Catholic facilities was often very regimented and very strict. Helmer: It was. We had no ash trays in the room. I've quit smoking now but I did smoke at that time. As I remember I don't know that that was a bad thing. I guess it was just something that we knew was going to happen. If you were going to go to a Catholic Hospital you had to accept the regime that the nuns expected you to do. I suppose if you didn't want to you went to a Swedish Hospital or some other hospital if they were going to be less strict. I remember us complaining some, I suppose but I don't remember it as being something we couldn't handle. Terreo: Well tell me a little bit about your training. You went through three years. What was your first year like and did you wear some sort of special uniforms? Helmer: We wore a uniform the whole three years. They were Cadet Nurse's uniforms. They were pinafores with a white blouse. Candy stripe blue and white and being the last class and discontinuing that, we did have dress uniforms. I don't ever remember putting on a dress uniform but I know that when we worked we wore those so that you could identify us from the baccalaureate nurses who wore only white and we wore the pin stripes. We all had caps after our Capping ceremony. My kids never had to wear - as nurses. You know, I have to compare what I went through. I wouldn't be seen in a hospital without a nurse's hat on. They don't even - the kids don't even have a hat and I have a daughter that works in intensive care at Stanford University. She was a head nurse in pediatric intensive care. They wear street clothes. We wore white socks, white and our pinstriped. Even as a new graduate in a white uniform and white socks, you didn't go downtown with those on because that was a black mark against the nursing profession to change your clothes before you did. Technically it was good health - for good health reasons but it was the idea that you just weren't seen except at work in your white uniform. That's really lax now as far as I'm concerned with nursing 'cause you can see them and their hair is - oh and hair on the collar. Oh my goodness. You know you always had your hair off your collar. I wore braids and a coronet because - and then my nurses cap because you just didn't let your hair go. You watch nurses now, there's all kinds of 'em with it down and up and short and street clothes. I don't know that that makes a patient more comfortable but Nevada and Diane always said that that's the way they were taught you know. They were a little more at ease with patients if they were in street clothes than if they were in uniform. Well, that's the old nursing against the new. I still like to see white socks, white shoes on them and white uniforms on nurses. However, as a director of nursing, after I came back to Lewistown, which I'm going to jump here a minute. Where I left Montana, I ended up and worked twenty-five years at St. Joseph's Hospital when I was eighteen I left the state because I wanted to get away and I ended up right back where I was raised. As a director of nursing I went along with the nurses. They wore colored blouses. I did like the white shoes. I went with colored hose because that was what they wanted. I didn't insist that they wore hats but the ones that wore hats I really praised because I thought they looked like nurses. In management you have to sometimes go along with what the group wants versus what you think as long as they were clean and neat and tidy. I still did not like their hair loose. I would say put it in a ponytail, get it out so it's not in your face when you are starting an IV. That type of thing. Nursing has changed a lot in that aspect as far as clothing and that type goes. Terreo: Well did you find your uniforms comfortable? What kind of material were they made out of? Helmer: Weill was tickled to death when we went to nylons but I had white cotton, long sleeved uniforms. They were starched and I ironed them (laughs). I don't know how I did it, but we did. Threequarter sleeves, not long - because I always wore three-quarter sleeves because you'd wash your hands better with those sleeves. I worked in the operating room in nurses training. We were allowed in our last six months to choose an area that we particularly thought that we wanted to go into. My roommate took OB (obstetrics) - maternity. I took the operating room which was my love. Terreo: Why did you pick surgery? Helmer: I suppose I liked the -I just liked it and I worked many years after I came back to Lewistown as the head nurse in the operating room. I liked the cleanliness, the regime. I like to take - be a part of making people well and if you come to the operating room there's something usually wrong with you and you go back and you watch people get better. That was always a good feeling for me to do. To go out in three or four days and see you that patient had gotten along. Terreo: Well do you remember your first experience in the operating room? Helmer: Oh, I do. I was in nursing training. I hadn't been in the operating room in maybe three or four weeks. We spent three months in the operating room. Of my three years of training I spent nine months in the operating room. As each of the nurses did if you wanted to be a surgical - specialize on surgery floor, pediatrics, maternity. We had that choice to do that. My first experience was a strangulated hernia on a little four year old child. A little boy. And they called me at ten o'clock at night. The regular girl that was on duty was already working and they needed a scrub nurse and they thought that I had done quite well as a scrub nurse - just assisting and so they called me and asked me if I would come and help doctor do this hernia. That was the best feeling. I got called special and I suppose that's why I like it and I did a good job. It went well. I suppose that's why I liked operating room nursing versus some of the other. When I went to San Diego then I just worked on a plain surgical floor where they had surgerypost operatively and pre-operatively. I remember that I had been in two hospitals now and in both those hospitals they had doctors and they had residents and they had interns and then they had the nurses. If the nurses had a problem the intern came and then if he couldn't handle it, the resident did and if he couldn't it why they called the doctor. It was good experience they were both big hospitals, 300 bed hospitals. I'd never started an IV because they had an IV team that if a doctor ordered it and those were quite unusual, you didn't have an IV very often. Now everyone has an IV team. But I hadn't started an IV. I'd call the IV team when I worked the three to eleven (shift) before I went to school in the daytime in between having five kids. Terreo: Well let's go back a little ways. Helmer: Okay. Terreo: I'm sure that during your career as a nurse that the operating rooms' equipment and probably layouts changed. Can you tell me a little about what it was like when you still a student nurse? How was a typical operating room set up? Helmer: Probably the furniture in the operating room was not much different than it is now. There's certainly a lot more technical equipment now than what we had at that time. You had a machine that the anesthetist gave the anesthetic with and a suction machine. There probably wasn't that much difference in - well certainly the tables are much - before we had wheels that you turned to jack-knife the table or trendelenberg, you know put the table where your head is down or your feet are down. Now you push a button and it's all automatic. Those things are different. Probably the biggest thing now is operating rooms are way off limits to most people in an operating room. I mean in a hospital. At that point anyone could come to the door. Then they come to the door a talk to the physician or when you going to be done. What I'm saying is that the sterility is much stricter enforced now than when I was in training. I can remember lay, I mean people in just regular clothes wandering around in operating rooms. You wouldn't have that now. You would have to go in to a special room, change your clothes, put on hospital garb, take your shoes off or else put shoe coverings on. You put a hat to cover your hair up. You would probably have to put a mask over your beard before you can go into the operating room. That wasn't like that when I started in an operating room. It was pretty open compared to what it is now. Getting back to equipment. You know that it's much more sophisticated now than what we had. They didn't have it. A transfusion in 1948 the IV team gave, all the transfusions and they were pretty rare. You'd call and say so and so needed a transfusion and they came down. They'd sit with that patient during the whole time the blood was given. I mean it was rare in 1948 to give blood although blood was available in the operating room and certainly to patients that absolutely needed it, it wasn't used like it is now. People took longer to get better too than they do now. You know an average length of stay probably in 1948 was ten days to two weeks. I mean even if you had a baby you stayed that long. I talked about appendix. I remember having my first baby in 1948 and being in the hospital a week and knew no one in San Diego at that time and Larry would come in the evening. I nursed Diane so that I would get her every four hours and I tried - which is beside the point - I'm not going to say that. Anyway it was a pretty sterile atmosphere on the maternity ward. I stayed a week. It cost my eighty-five dollars. I went a year later, with my next baby, the cost had raised to ninety-five dollars and I was home in four days. Terreo: Now the cost - did that include any kind of pre-natal care? Helmer: No, that was separate. I went to an OBGYN man that my OB doctor in Seattle recommended. End of Tape 1 Side A Helmer: Remember I'm in a big hospital now. We had a pediatrician who was there to take care of the babies right after delivery. Things that we aren't going to have available in Lewistown, Montana when I get here. I worked OB and I've got some things that will tell you that in a few minutes. I always felt that Dr. Rust took good care of me as far as pre-natal care at that time in San Diego, in 1948 compared to what they've got in Lewistown. Terreo: Alright, tell me, going back to the operating room, you as a surgical nurse would have been responsible for the instrument tray. Helmer: All of them. All the equipment that we needed. Terreo: Well has that changed a lot over the years or has it - have the instruments remained the same. Helmer: Oh no. Instruments are certainly more sophisticated than they use to be and you have many, many more compared to what our instrument trays were when I first started. Doctors expect more because they were taught how to use those instruments where the doctors where in 1948 were not even familiar. Some of those instruments weren't even made that they used (today). I'm thinking about stapes for bowel surgery and things like that. They didn't even have them. They still sewed every stitch. Now they have a staple gun. They go in and staple. Terreo: What kind of material were they using for their stitching? Helmer: Cat gut. Silk. There was cotton there. I think cotton may have been getting old. I mean people weren't using it by that time in 1948. Although it was still on the shelf. They were going to the new nylons. The new sutures of different kind of cat gut. They were starting to wrap packages individual. When I first started you had a round jug like this (demonstrates with hands) and you had little bottles and it was covered with disinfectant and you took a forcep and you reached in and you took that out of that disinfectant and put it on the sterile and put it on the field and that's what the surgeon sewed up the patient with. As you progress those came to be separately wrapped already sterilized before in an inner pack that you opened and gave to them. Same way with needles. They were in around jar like that and we took a forcep. What kind do you want? Oh, medium size Eleanor and you reach in with that forcep and you put it over on the field and she'd rinse it with sterile distilled water and gave it to the doctor and he'd use it. You wouldn't - why that was terrible. This could be contaminated in a minute but those things did happen. As far as wound infections and things like that I don't remember it being a big thing if you - and you surely saw them, they did occur. I don't remember it - we didn't even have penicillin. Penicillin and sulpha. They were using a lot of sulpha in wounds in 1948. That was as a result of the war. I don't remember that penicillin wasn't used very much. I mean it was still a real new drug. Of course now any of your antibiotics but those were the two that I remember are penicillin and I remember it hurting and I remember haVing to mix it up and you gave it to them every four hours and look for a spot that wouldn't hurt 'em because you wouldn't give an IV. Well now that's all different know. You go in, push it in with a pump and the patient doesn't know. I mean he was hurt initially when the needle was put in but then from then on he doesn't know that he's getting an antibiotic. They knew it when we gave them an antibiotic because they got it into their bottom every four hours. You usually couldn't give it in their arms but their bottoms got sore after five or six days of having a shot every four hours. Terreo: Well you mentioning a little bit earlier, needle. The syringes that you used at that time. They were glass weren't they? Helmer: They were glass and we boiled 'em. We had a little reservoir. It was electric. We plugged it in and then we had IV trays. I mean we had trays with the syringes in 'em, taken apart and then you'd boil 'em for twenty minutes. Then you'd take that out and then you could reach in and touch the top because it was two parts. You had the plunger and the syringes so you'd have to take the plunger, take it out and put it in when you got ready to use it. You again used forceps. You know a forcep - a transfer forcep to do that. Those are all wrapped individually now and thrown away (laughs). I'm not sure they aren't going to have to go back to that someday just because of the fact that what are they doing with those thousands that they are throwing away every day. I'm not sure that disposables are here to stay. Mainly because if you look at the garbage that accumulates with paper drapes. That's going back to the operating room. You know, we always had cloth drapes with no holes in 'em and that all came out and when you get up your packs you checked 'em or you had a -I remember the first time that we had a - it was like an ironing board with a light and you could pass that under and you could really see those holes better than holding it up against the window to see if you could a hole and if you couldn't see a hole then that was a good enough drape to use to put in your pack that you would open to cover the patient up before the doctor operated. But when you see the paper - now they've gone to disposable and those are all paper drapes and when you get through with the operating and you look over in the corner and here's this mound of paper that's thrown away because it was used and can't be used again. You know some days I just wonder if that isn't going to be an issue. There are a lot of articles like that. You know maybe some of those reusable things weren't so bad. Terreo: Well the drapes and the glass syringes, what was their longevity or life expectancy? Helmer: I suppose after they had been boiled the numbers on it are going to become obliterated and you aren't going to be able to see how much a CC is. I suppose a year. That might be a little long but not that much unless you dropped it or broke it or whatever. You could use it a long time. Stainless steel bed pans. Stainless steel wash basins. Those types of things will last forever. Now everything is plastic and they don't last that long. They crack in the autoclave and they just are not that strong that they're going to last forever. When we came, going just ahead, and I moved into the new hospital, my Scotch (ancestry) really bothered me a lot and I saved some of those stainless steel bed pans and stainless steel, beautiful wash basins, because we went to individual plastic packs of - and the patient took them home. I couldn't throw them away but we had an auction a couple of years later and they went and I'm sure they ended up as flower pots (laughs) on that. Terreo: What it was like at that time that you just started out. I would suppose that you were involved in preparing the operating room for the operation. Tell me a little bit about that and did that change over the years? Helmer: No. I don't think setting up an operating room for an operation has changed that much. You basically have a nurse that's going to help the doctor and you have a nurse on the outside that going to get you things that you need as the operation progresses. Other than like I say it being a change from the type of material, the number of different kinds of instruments. The fact that extra people other than the physicians being in the room, and no one else. I don't think it's really changed that much as far as going in and setting it up except now there's a lot more equipment that you get ready compared to what we use to do. As far as it being changed, I think once an operating room nurse always an operating room nurse and what's sterile is sterile and what isn't (sterile) isn't. What you think might be sterile isn't sterile. I mean if there's a doubt in your mind that it's not sterile and you start over again. I don't think that really that basic philosophy has changed that much. There's a lot more. We don't have sophisticated air conditioning. We had a fan to cool the doctor off. Now that isn't the necessary part of an operating room because they're all air conditioned. Operating rooms are still cold. They were cold and it's more comfortable to be a little cooler than if it's too hot. It isn't like Mash but it's still a fun place to be (laughs). Terreo: What about following a surgery. Would you have to account for all the instruments? Helmer: We counted every - we counted instruments and sponges. Sponges were always counted when you entered any major cavity. You counted them before the doctor started to sew up the patient so that you knew exactly - and you counted them before the operation ever started so that you had - and that was all written down and became part of the chart. You hear about people that lose sponges. It happens. Needles. Now they're usually a swaged on needle. The suture is attached to the needle in this little packet I was talking about where before we had loose needles. It's very seldom you have a loose needle on the operating room field anymore. You count them to make sure you had the right number before you start as far as sponges and needles were concerned. Instrument count. We did never count instruments. You heard about law suits where instruments were left in patients. Before I quit the operating room and went into infection control, housekeeping - we were counting some instruments. Some of the major instruments. I think they're counting instruments now mainly because the law suits that have evolved from instruments being left in patients. That does happen. Terreo: You were a working mother. You mentioned that your husband was going to school at that time? Helmer: Right and he was a teacher - he taught here in Moore (Montana) in fact and he taught in San Diego. It was fifty-two (1952) his folks lived here. He was from here too and we were going to farm and so we decided it would be better to raise our kids in Montana than it would be in California. I had four kids at that time and so we packed up and called the moving van and they came and got us and we came back to Montana. We weren't here probably a month and it got -the farm got hailed out and Larry had his teaching certificate so he went to work at Moore and taught for thirty-one years. I went to work at St. Joseph's Hospital. When I was in nurses training I never liked OB and when I came to St. Joseph's Hospital the only opening they had was on OB. Now remember, if a patient in labor in Seattle of San Diego the intern stood there and he knew when that woman was going to have a baby but as a nurse in Lewistown, Montana I was the only one that was there. We took care of the mothers and we took care of the babies and we took care of the woman in labor. And sometimes you'd have fifteen babies and sometimes you'd have two in the old hospital up here. I had never examined a mother. As a nurse they had showed us on a plastic dummy, if a woman was ready to have a baby but I had never been involved in that and the Nun says to me, uOh Eleanor I'll come and help you". But, this is the only opening that they had when I was ready. I hadn't worked for five years. I had another baby in between there and I decided that if I didn't come back to nursing pretty soon I wasn't going to. I felt like I was getting too far behind. So, I said okay. Anyone ought to learn how to have a baby and so my first night at work and I think - oh, the Nuns came over and helped you feed the babies because when they - after they'd nursed you'd take them back to the nursery and you had fifteen babies that hadn't gotten enough milk 'cause the mother's milk isn't in, then you have to start - you hand - you bottle fed 'em back in the nursery so they would come over at 9:00 and I'd been feeding the babies and the Nun comes over and this woman had come in the labor room and it was like her fourth child and I knew her real well. In those small towns you know everyone and they know you better sometimes than you know them because I remember when I had Susie and it's probably four years ago and you think who is that woman and they said well you were my nurse, you know. Those things you don't get in a big hospital where you get it in Lewistown. Anyway she said well when my membrane ruptured and I'll have my baby. I said well don't let your membranes rupture because - until Sister Mary gets over here because this is my first night at work. I'd been feeding the babies and Sister Mary comes over and she goes in and talks to Marilyn and she says - she comes back out in a minute and said weill didn't examine her. She said she's not having any labor pains and she says there's nothing to it. And I said Oh gosh is that right? Okay. So we - the old hospital, there were three floors. The babies were on the first floor and the labor room was on the first floor and then the mothers were on the second floor and the third floor for the overflow and you put a bin like with bassinets in the elevator and they were all marked and then you took 'em to the second floor and gave them to the mothers or let the mothers feed 'em, first. Well I'm up stairs with the babies. This is my first night and my hearts a going bomb, bomb, bomb. The husband comes running up the stairs and said, "Mrs. Helmer, Marilyn's waters broke!" I said oh my gosh it can't be. Weill ran downstairs. I'm the only one there and this is like ten minutes after the Nun has gone and we have a baby. I haven't seen a baby born for fifteen - twenty years - you know it had been that long - well maybe not that long. Twelve years anyway. I was probably 34 when I was back and first went to work. Well we had the baby and I called the doctor and he comes sauntering in. He takes care of everything and I thought anyone can learn to examine a woman to have a baby and so I worked OB probably two years. They were short of nurses. I would come at five and my husband then was able to be home in Moore to take care of the kids so that we never had to have a baby sitter and I worked five to eleven till the night nurse came on. I mentioned that 'cause we are more and more doing that in hospitals now, adjusting to the family needs instead of saying, these are the shifts. You work to keep the people and they did stay. They were real good. I was given pain killer once in a while for a nasty pain. If they were going to not nurse and nursing was not advocated at that time like it is now. You everyone nurses. If you didn't want to it's alright and you took a pill. Those were probably the two pills you gave to DB. I was glad I had the experience as an adult after haVing kids of my own - Not liking it as a student nurse. It was still pretty calm and if it wasn't, it was a tragedy. You either had a sick baby, a sick mother. You know, it was bad. The doctors depended on that nurse and they didn't want to be called early. They didn't like to be called late either so it was a lot different from what I had experienced in a larger hospital working in the maternity department. I learned. I learned a lot. You became real compassionate and understanding. At that time they had an opening in the operating room and of course that's where I went and then I worked twenty years in the operating room. They had a Nun in charge when I first went to work (at the hospital). When she left the Nuns sold the hospital and then I became the head nurse. I was the head nurse when we left there (this is in reference to the move from St. Joseph's Hospital to the Central Montana Hospital). That's not right. That was when Infection Control became the big issue in hospitals and so I took that job mainly because of living fifteen miles away, driving back and forth three and four times. A person would break a leg. You'd get home. Some little kid has fallen and broken an arm and back to town you came. That was my life. That was hard with five kids. Never knowing. Terreo: I imagine that was pretty hard in winter too. Helmer: It was hard in winter. It was hard. Now only one time we had a real bad winter that I had to stay in town. I often times I had to be at work at seven o'clock. If I got called late in the night I would either sleep at the hospital or go to my aunt's and stay just because I didn't want to drive back knowing I'd have to come back in a couple hours. I enjoyed those years. My kids were raised expecting that's what was going to happen to Mom. She might not be there for Thanksgiving dinner and I have always thought it was kind of unusual but neither one of my kids like the operating room either, that were nurses. I also went into support services after along with the infection control which meant I had charge of central supply which is the sterilizing of all the equipment and supplying all the products, ordering all the equipment for all ofthe departments that needed it like the operating room and that. And I also had housekeeping and laundry as a support services along with infection control. What -I'm saying that is that I kind of went through the ranks. Then they had the director of nursing office position open and the administrator offered me the job. I did not apply for it but he offered it to me and I took it at that time. I was the director of nursing for like four years before I retired. It was a real satisfactory job. I enjoyed it. I still miss my operating room. I miss the patient contact that I didn't have as the director of nursing. I did a good job as far as I could tell you. My husband retired and I quit (laughs). Terreo: You went up through the ranks. Helmer: Without a degree. Terreo: You were saying that you had some feelings about that and some opinions on the amount of training or knowledge that someone acquires. Helmer: Right. I think that again the baccalaureate prepared nurse would probably be more qualified to be a director of nursing than I was. There's probably some argument amongst diploma nurses who ended up as director of nursing, but I think that you probably problem solve better - communicate better than nurses that did bedside nursing. And basically that's what three year nursing is, is a bedside nurse. Paper work has become phenomenal compared to what we did when I started in nursing. I think we do that to avoid law suits. To remember what went on in case you're ever approached again. Trying to remember if a law suit happens and you're going to get sued because you've got a long time as a kid can be twenty-one and you've got to remember what happened twenty-one years ago unless you've got it written down, you haven't got a leg to stand on. So, paper work in itself, I think computers are going to help that. I think when they get nurses notes on computers and I think some of it they still do be hand. I think nurses should be with the patient instead of doing these copious amounts of nurse's notes but I don't know how you avoid that. Terreo: Well tell me, in your training were you assigned basically to the same patients. Helmer: No. No. You might for a day but the next day you probably took or were assigned nine and ten patients. A lot of patients compared to what they do now because giving total patient care you can't take care of as many patients and most of the nurses will do total patient care in larger hospitals. In Lewistown, Montana that nurse has got to take care of the patient and give the medicines and start the IV and they've got a nurse's aide that'll take your temperature, take the patient's blood pressure so they probably have a team, the nurse and this nurse's aide. So the nurse's aide will be giving the baths while the nurse does the treatments and gives the medicines. Medicines in itself - you can't believe the amount of medicines that are given in a hospital compared to what they did when I started nurses training. It's again to know why you're giving that patient that medicine, what to look for complications. It takes a lot of knowledge. Terreo: You specialized as a surgical nurse. Alright now coming to Lewistown where the need for specialized services is not always great, did you find yourself occasionally because there might not have been a surgery scheduled or something like that helping out maybe in another area? Helmer: A lot. That was how I ended up in Central Supply. Because if there was a light surgery scheduled - you have to remember we did the cleaning and we folded linen in the suite. They don't do that up here in the new hospital. But when I started that was an expectation. You scrubbed the floors between cases. At the end of the day ... (Tape runs out). End of Tape I Side B Tape II, Side A Helmer: We were going to have an open house the next day and I got the floor buffer out one night when we weren't too busy on OB. I didn't have any patients in labor and I got the floor buffer out and was buffing the floor and the Administrator came over to OB and she said, "Mrs. Helmer, what are you doing." I said I'm polishing the floor for the open house tomorrow. I thought it looked like it needed it. That was probably the beginning of "don't cross over into another area and do a job that you're supposed to." I didn't think it was a bad thing to do. That's the way I'd been taught. How to do. I mean you did everything. You dusted the beds. You did that in taking care of the patients. When you left the patient he was clean and neat, his bedside table was washed off, his bed board over his bed was cleaned and it was dusted. Terreo: Well that was part of your training wasn't it? Helmer: That was the way I was taught to do that. So, when I get bawled out for buffing the floor you know, you stop and think how things have changed because if I thought the floor needed buffing I should have called housekeeping and have 'em come over even if I had to take care of that one baby and one mother, I wasn't expected to buff the floor and don't do it and so I didn't, But, you know, there again, you talk about being specialized, there's some disadvantages of saying well this is my job and that's all I'll do instead of looking at the whole picture and making sure that the things are - you know patient comfort is real important and sometimes it's real nice to be able to make a patient feel good. I guess I'm pretty patient oriented. I thought that if a patient told me that I believed what he said and you know I think that's a good characteristic. Terreo: Well working here in Lewistown which is relatively much smaller than San DiegoHelmer: Real rural. Real rural. Terreo: I suppose that often you attended the same patient of maybe several days? Helmer: Oh yeah. Several days that same patient. You might have that woman that came in for four kids and if you worked there for two years you take care of that same woman who had that baby four years ago and had one every year since. The same way with the one that had the kids that had their appendix out you know, that break their arm, you get to know people. Terreo: Did you ever have situations where patients wants you to take of them because they felt more comfortable with you? Helmer: Yeah and I still have people that come us and say, "boy I sure miss you." That's a good feeling. They remember you a lot better sometimes than you remember them because of the numbers. They remember you because you were either good to 'em or bad to 'em as a health care person to take care of 'em. Yeah, lots oftime. I still have people that say that. Terreo: Well when you got to be supervisor of nursing I would suppose that the changes you described became perhaps more evident to you. Helmer: Oh, right. I suppose I was aware of those before I took that job. I remember the Administrator saying, "Eleanor give it four years before you give up because it's going to be a lot different in that position. You as boss, you lose some of the camaraderie with the regular staff people that you had just because you're in that position. It's pretty lonely at the top. Terreo: Well did you find that having gone through the ranks that that helped you quite a bit because you could understand better. Helmer: Oh I think that did because I could understand what they were going through. That's what I say; you listen to 'em a lot. When I talked about the white socks versus colored socks. Those types of things. I think it's real important that your staff has input and I tried to give 'em that. Sometimes that wasn't always possible if you're governed by Administration that's short of money and staff doesn't understand that you bought a new piece of equipment for the operating room or a new piece of equipment for the coronary care unit when out on the floor they don't have an adequate bed scale and why can't you buy that when you're looking at a budget. I wasn't involved in coming up through the ranks as much as I was as Director of Nursing. Knowing where the money is going and that type of thing. Terreo: So you were finding that you were now privy to more information than you ever had been before. Helmer: Ever had been before and some of it I could share and some of it I couldn't. I did involve my people in budgets. I think that's real important. As a nurse in 1948 that was the furthest thing in the world was to think that a lay person would ever have a voice in what do we need. Let's set some priorities. What do you think is important that we buy in the next calendar year? Or fiscal year whichever you are. I tried to give my people that opportunity for some input in that. Sometimes you could and sometimes you couldn't. Terreo: Were any of your people ever surprised that you were asking them for input? Helmer: Oh yeah. A lot. Maybe because they hadn't been asked before. But, it's going to be the way-I mean have got to have input in order to be happy. I think job satisfaction means that you're part of the main stream and you can't have someone up here saying that you will do this or - those days are gone. It was a real tense job to be the director of nursing. Always trying to think how you involve the staff so that you can keep them. I'm real against unions. I've had many arguments with my husband over this. He's a real strong union person and thinks that if you didn't have a union teachers would never have gotten paid what they are now. Nursing has a strong union. We had a strong union. As a member of the Montana Nurses Association, I always thought that if I treated my people fair and I did what I could for 'em, I didn't need that union and I still have some reservations along that line but I think without a union or without the nurses association to back us up, we'd probably still be making $3.00 a hour, which I started with when I went on OB. I had come from San Diego and weill was probably making more, I don't remember my salary in San Diego. I don't remember being upset over $3.00 an hour. But that's what I started at. Terreo: Well when you came here, I think you said in 1952, and then a year later you were working at the hospital. Alright now I think it was about four or five years after that, wasn't there a big to do about nurses and credentialing and that type of thing in the state. Helmer: Yeah, that again, as a part-time nurse with a bunch of little kids at home, I don't remember being that involved. It was a big issue in the credentialing process and what do we want with our nurses and I think probably at that point baccalaureate versus diploma questions started arising. You know which do we want to end up in Montana with. I think that it's going to eventually end up that there's going to be a strong delineation of responsibilities as far as what nurses aides can do and what associate nurses can do and what nurses aides can do. I don't think it's going to happen this next year but I think that as nursing becomes more technical and as other people recognize that nurses are really taking care of that patient. Doctors are with that patient very little. Nursing has got to be given more responsibility and decision making and I think that it's going to eventually end up that there's going to fall to those people that have to have a higher degree or more education because I think they need the credit for it. I have no problem with that. If you take care of a patient and you're there eight hours a day or twelve and the doctor is there fifteen minutes in the morning and maybe fifteen at night and maybe not at all and maybe he sees them once a day and he comes and reads a chart - whose been taking care of that patient? That nurse, and she ought to be given some credit for that and be paid for that. And, I don't think they are right now although it's certainly better than it used to be. As far as responsibility goes I think there not getting a lot of the credit they need to. That some person is taking care of the patient that had her education in Havre as the one that had it in Bozeman and they've got the same responsibilities. You know somewhere that's going to be delineated more than it is right now. Terreo: Well, tell me a little bit about the recruitment of nurses. Was that ever a problem for you? Helmer: Yeah, no not as much as in most places. People like Lewistown, Montana and we have people most of the nurses if they were married, husbands were doing something too, so it wasn't a matter of them being self-supporting. I lost a lot of young single ones to Billings and Great Falls but a teacher would move in whose wife was a nurse. I never had a shortage for very long periods of time in the four years that I was working. I noticed just the other day and I've lost some contact with 'em just because I don't see 'em any more that they were advertising for part-time and full time nurses. It's the first time I'd seen the ad for a long time up here so maybe they're short. I don't know that now. At the time I was working they weren't. We weren't that short. You know, we might go a few months but - and lone time used call nurses. You know, a pool and they came for three months 'til I got another replacement. At the end of three months I got a replacement and they left. Well you call the agency ad they will send a nurse for three months or six months or whatever you need. I only used them one time for a CCU nurse because I didn't have anyone in the ranks who wanted to go to work the Coronary Care Unit. Terreo: Well did you ever come across a situation where you had somebody come in and they'd specialized say in obstetrics or pediatrics or something and because of the small size of the hospital they were expected perhaps to work in another area and that caused a problem? Helmer: Yes, I did. I can think of two different instances where that happened. I lost one of them - she had some CCU (experience) and she took it. I had an opening part time in CCU and then I gave her some - she was in-service continuing Ed (education) major. I mean she was a teacher and then I had her set up some classes for continuing Ed in order to keep her and then when there was an opening in OB she went to OB. I don't know that it was a problem. Her husband was here. She wasn't going to leave. You know, that's why I say I'm not sure that I lost nurses. It might have more salary that I lost nurses from and not availability of a lot of young farmers or they were looking for a man and there weren't that many. You know they might be here six months before going to Great Falls. It's kind of a quiet neighborhood, quiet community to live in. Those rich ranchers don't always materialize for the twenty-two and twenty-three year aids that they're looking for. There's just not that much going on. You can go to the Bar 19 (a popular local restaurant) and that's about it in Lewistown for a young single person. Terreo: Well did you have any that came in that specialized in something but really liked the variety of hospital duties sometimes? Helmer: Oh I suppose that you did. They probably would more -I suppose it would depend upon the job that was opening. If there was a supervisory job they would be more interested in a supervisory job where you would supervise departments on nights or P.M.'s. Nursing again doesn't always like to work the P.M. and night shifts. Everyone wants to work day shift and that isn't always a feasible thing to do because the hospital is open 24 hours a day so you have those that are on the other shifts that aren't happy that are going to be looking for something different and you know you're going to lose those people. In the meantime they'll fell a slot and take care of those patients for a short time if they are looking or they are not going to come at all. You'll lose those people in Lewistown. Terreo: For a long time the hospital- St. Joseph's Hospital had a nursing school. Are any of your nurses graduates from that school? Helmer: Oh a lot of them. A lot of 'em and then they had a practical nurses - LPN licensed practical nurses school which when I was in the operating room, went through the operating room as part of their course and they had that for about five or six years of that time they opened this LPN school and they lived in the same dorms that the RN's had lived in when they were there. That was a one year program and they probably spent two weeks in the operating room going through their different departments. We had a lot of those that are still in Lewistown. I think that's a disadvantage not to have a school in the town that you are working at. I think Billings and Great Falls are going to keep those nurses. They know which ones are the good nurses and the responsible nurses. Having a school of nursing and taking part that they have an advantage over people in Lewistown because they are going to be offered a job and you can't compete with them. As far as money goes, in Lewistown you can't compete with salaries in those other areas because they are able to give more in their area. The RN school had closed when I was ready to work. I don't remember the year it closed. Terreo: The nursing home was also part of the hospital. When you became supervisor of nurses did you have the responsibility for that as well? Helmer: No. They had a director of nursing in the Nursing Home. At that time that was a Federal regulation that if you had a nursing home attached over fifty beds, and I think we had like seventy-five or eighty, I'm not even just sure exactly what because they've added fifty now. I think we had seventyfive. I think we've got ninety now. Then you had to have separate director of nursing for that so I didn't have the nursing home. I only had the hospital but I had the emergency room and the coronary care unit and OB and the surgical floor and the operating room and I had the central supply. Those were the departments that I had under me. Terreo: Earlier you alluded to liability insurance. Now when started out I would assume that was not a really big issue for nurses. Helmer: No. I can remember in nurses training saying that you know that if you've got liability insurance you're going to get sued because if anyone knows about liability insurance that you're sure as heck going to get sued because you can always get money you know, on that the same way as the Good Samaritan Law. In Seattle I had doctors in class that said if there's an accident don't stop. You just go as fast as you can right by there because if you stop you're going to get sued. As I went on I could see advantages of joining my liability insurance came through my nurses association dies. In California if you belonged to the Nurses Association then you could get your liability insurance a lot cheaper and the same way in Montana and so I always carried liability insurance. Being in an operating room and thinking about lost sponges, lost needles, you were in a position where there were not very many people taking care of that patient and if they didn't get you we were always told they could get your husband and the farm, (laughs) if you didn't have liability insurance. I don't know that that's true but I just always carried it. Lots of nurses I know even right now don't have liability insurance. I think it's important as a nurse that you carry it. It certainly wasn't emphasized in nurses training. Then the Good Samaritan Law came where you could not be held liable if you stopped at the scene of an accident and Montana has the Good Samaritan Law. Affected a lot of people I think as far as whether they were going to have liability insurance or not. I think it kind of worked together in that. We certainly weren't taught that and if we were it was mentioned just in brief that you could obtain liability insurance in case you got sued for giving - something happening to a patient but it was kind of glossed over you know, like it never happen. I think nurses should carry it and I did. Terreo: I would suppose premiums have increased. Helmer: A lot. A lot. But you can still get liability insurance without joining the Nurses Association. You'll pay for it. Again - nurses are being paid more now. They ought to be - if you're going to work, you ought to be able to afford liability insurance 'cause if you do get sued and you don't have it then I don't know - you could be in trouble but on the other hand you can't fire and empty gun either so I don't know (laughs). I think you should have it. I advocate my nurses to have it. Not all of them did but I thought that nurses should have liability insurance and that's from the very beginning. I just feel strong about it. Terreo: Today a big deal about stress and burnout and that type ofthing in nurses. Did you ever across that kind of situation? Helmer: Oh much. Very much. In fact a time or two I even gave some compassionate leave and covered it with sick time on people that had had some trauma in their life. I didn't always agree because I probably think about myself and I don't remember any time that I was so stressed out that I would have asked for compassionate leave with that many years of nursing. With thirty-five years probably. I again think that goes along with understanding what's going on with your employees. I think that's a benefit. I'm not sure. It's a stressful job. Nursing is stressful and so you've got to know that there's going to be people that aren't always going to be able to handle that stress. I think, you know, that's why we've got counselors. Why we've got compassionate leave so they can go and get some help to see how to cope with that. I think when you're in life and death situations compassionate leave might be necessary for some people. Like I said I gave it to a couple that were going through a divorce and trouble at home and paid sick leave for that. I don't think I was criticized for that. I didn't put it on the bulletin board that I did it but it was something that I thought was necessary at the time and yet I thought she was salvageable too. If you can get over that hump. She was a good nurse. Terreo: Did you find that family support in can be very valuable. For example you were talking about when you were a surgical nurse and sometimes they called you up in the middle of the night that type of thing. I would assume that your family would have gotten probably very understanding after a while or very ticked off and probably sometimes both. Helmer: Probably both. But they just knew that that was part of my job I guess. When I worked first I worked first I worked that five to eleven-thirty shift - When I got the opening for the operating room that was a day job. That meant everything was going to change in our life at home and so we say down. I think Diane (her daughter) was probably in high school. Maybe a freshman or sophomore in high school and on down about the fact that I would be home in the evenings where before I wasn't home and Larry got their supper and helped with their homework - our life style was going to change quite a bit by me going to work in the operating room because I was going to be working different hours and I'd be gone in the morning. Before I was there (at home) when they went to school. As an operating room nurse and then as supervisor my hours extended. I always thought the twelve hour day was wonderful. I always worked twelve hours a day because I'd let my staff go and I often times stayed to finish the autociaving or my paper work - the regular staff was gone and I was still there. Having a husband for a teacher he was always there at four-thirty or five o'clock and so he always got supper which was real nice to come home and we'd all sit down and he and I did the dishes and the kids did their homework or whatever but that was just the way our life changed because I changed shifts. As they look back on it now and we've talked about it with them and they're grown, all of them, they say they were really angry lots of time when I got called. Thanksgiving dinner we were all getting ready to sit down and Eleanor's got to go for an operation. Those things did happen and I guess we just did it and now they think well gosh she was never there but I was there for a lot of it too. The kids went to college. They did things because I was working that they would not have been able to do on a teacher's salary. I was making more money there as a nurse than he was making as a teacher. That's better now too. Terreo: Do you think that because now that two of your children (tape runs out) End of Tape 2, Side A Tape II, Side B Helmer: I'm a good one to go to the doctor. That person that always calls me and says now Eleanor what would you do - you know so and so's temps up and I've given them aspirin. What do you think I ought to do. I'd say my standard works, "YOU CALL THE DOCTOR" and do what the doctor tells you. Terreo: So you took your kids to the doctor a lot? Helmer: No, I don't think I did. I don't think I took them any more than anyone else, no. I guess they were pretty healthy (laughs). Terreo: Well in your childhood did your parents have any kind of home remedies that they used for you? Helmer: Other than sulpha and molasses every spring you know. My dad again thought - along with the sassafras tea if you took a dose of sulpha and molasses mixed it was a tonic and that really cleaned your blood you after a hard winter and I can remember doing that for a few years and not forever. I can remember my grandmother put mustard plasters for cold. I never put a mustard plaster on anyone. And God love Grandma Carr, I'm sure she cured a lot of up by boiling onion and honey for cough syrup. I can remember her doing that as growing up. Those are about the only things I can think of. Terreo: Well did you ever have your tonsils out? Helmer: Not any of us had our tonsils out and I'm the only one that had my appendix out of all my sisters and brothers. I can remember my Dad got bucked off a horse and broke his collar bone and he came in and Dr. Gans put a cast on him and it was a cast that was a body cast. They just put you in a harness now they don't even do this. He sent dad home and told him to come back in three weeks. And when he came back Dr. Gans got the cast cutter out to cut the cast off and dad said what are you doing that for and he just lifted up that cast and took it off and set it over on the bed. He had a clean T shirt underneath. He had just taken that cast right off (laughing) and went on his way. I don't remember my family going to doctors that much. You just didn't. My dad did never think that it was necessary to girls to go to school. And it really wasn't necessary for boys because he only went through eighth grade. And if you got through the eighth grade you didn't have to go anymore. One of my brothers didn't go to high school for that very reason. The other two did. I would never probably had been able to go into nurses training had I not had my way paid. I was a good nurse. I have paid back the public amply over the years. I feel good about what I've done with my life as far as my nursing career goes. That wasn't something my dad thought was that important to do. I don't remember Mom being as verbal about it as Dad was. He was proud of me but it wasn't something that he would have put the money out for. End of Interview Transcribed by Margaret Summers. Audited by Barbara Terreo Edited by John Terreo, MHS, Oral Historian. Possible related interviews about health care and nursing in Lewistown and Fergus County, Montana include the following: OH 1332 Judith Machler OH 1333 Roberta Pullen OH 1334 Donald R. Browne OH 1335 Ken and Francis "Scottie" Byerly OH 1336 Eleanor Helmer OH 1337 Earl Eck |
| Local Identifier | LH 978.629 INTERVIEW |
Description
| Title | Helmer, Eleanor Interview 1 |
| Type | Text |
| Digitization Specifications | Canon MX310 300dpi |
| Digital Format | application/pdf |
| Full text of this item | OH 1336 Eleanor Helmer Introduction The following is an interview with Eleanor Helmer for the Medicine Health Care and Nursing in Montana oral History Project for the Montana Historical Society and this interview, Eleanor Helmer, discusses her career as a nurse including her initial training with the Cadet Nurse Corp, employment experiences as a nurse and later memories as operating nurse and Director of Nurses for the hospital in Lewistown, Montana. The interview was conducted in the dining room of her home located at 711 Erie in 3:00 p.m. The interviewer is John Terreo. Interview Tape 1 Side A Terreo: Mrs. Helmer could you give us a little bit of background information about yourself. Who your parents were and where you were born? Helmer: I was born in Fergus, Montana. That's Fergus County, about forty miles outside of Lewistown. I was probably one of those home deliveries. The doctor did come from Lewistown and attended the birth. My grandfather was an Osteopath. Took his training down in Missouri somewhere and did that for quite a few years. Terreo: Was that Kirkville, Missouri? Helmer: I would almost think it was and I bet I haven't got the book. Let me go and see if I can find it. I know where there is a book. Let me see. At Christina. Went through the eighth grade there and then came to Lewistown for my high school. I had an attack of appendicitis when I was about eight years old and someone told my dad that if you got sassafras tea it would cure you. So he drove - road horseback about three miles- Terreo: Excuse me a second. You were saying when you were eight years old - Helmer: I had an attack of appendicitis and someone told my dad that if you took sassafras tea that would cure you and you wouldn't have to have your appendix out. So he rode about three miles on horseback to get some sassafras tea from the neighbors. It didn't help but it did last six months before I had my appendix out so I had my appendix out which was my first time remembering being in a hospital and being around nursing, thinking this might be what I wanted to do when I grew up. Terreo: Well tell me a little about your appendicitis attack. How far were you from the hospital? Helmer: Probably forty miles. Terreo: And what kind of transportation was available? Helmer: A pick-up truck (laughs). We had gravel roads. We got mail at Christina once a day - Our regular mail delivery. The stage came. We called it the stage not the bus. We never went to the doctor unless there was something wrong. You didn't have regular checkups, that type, you know that was unheard of. There was six in our family and I was the oldest. I had three brothers and two sisters. My folks were farmers, ranchers. We went to school in a one room school house and I remember the coal stove an all of those types ofthings. Had a good library. Terreo: going back when they took you to the hospital, was that to St. Joseph's hospital here? Helmer: And Dr. Gans operated on me. I was ten days in the hospital to have my appendix out and then you very carefully left the hospital and went home and more or less stayed in bed for another month without any activity. Now we get 'em up within three or four hours and they're walking and usually |
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