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Show Volume XVI Issue XI The Ogden Valley news Page 9 June 1, 2009 By Miriam Renstrom Whitesides Note: This is the twelfth in a series of articles by the same author that will appear in following issues of “The Ogden Valley news.” The history was submitted by Jane Renstrom, wife of the late Darrell Renstrom who is the son of Arnold Renstrom and grandson of Andrew P. Renstrom. Also note, the following information has been condensed from the original transcript of “Century Echoes,” a history that combines world, U.S., Utah, LDS, and Ogden Valley history. 1918 Following a first aid course taught in Huntsville by Ogden doctors and with urging by them and Moiselle, I decided to go in training to be a nurse. World War I had started in Serbia and in 1916 the U.S.A. became involved following the sinking of the S.S. Lusitania by a German submarine, a passenger ship with two hundred lives lost. Two boys from Huntsville were killed in the fierce fighting and everybody was aroused to patriotic fever. On October 1, 1918, I left home quite sadly, feeling like a deserter and wondering who would keep the home fires burning. Erma was attending school in Ogden. Moiselle was teaching school in Weber County. George was far away. Arnold in the Marines and Gladys would live with Carol. My father was alone. We were never all together again. I arrived at the L.D.S. Hospital [in Salt Lake City] along with other novices. The training and work were severe. Our days were patterned after army life. We had one weekly late pass until 11:30 p.m. Otherwise, the nurses’ home was locked up at 9:00 p.m. Lights were out at 10:00, and we were called in the morning at 6:00, giving us one hour to dress, have breakfast and devotional exercises. We were on duty at 7:00. We had scarcely become used to patient bathing, enemas, compresses, hypodermic shots, temperature and pulse, and other treatments when in November, endemic Spanish Influenza struck our Western Coast. It terrorized the Western Coast. It terrorized the country for the deaths were numerous and sad. On November 11, the Armistice was signed. I was on night duty, and up on 9th Avenue we could hear the celebration downtown, shouting and singing, while the sick people on the division died. I felt like I was in another world and life would never be right again. The next morning my roommate shook me awake. She said, “Get up and come downtown with me. We’ll never see anything like this again.” She was right. We screamed and yelled and laughed with the hysterical crowd and late in the afternoon got back to the hospital, walking part of the way, due to the disrupted car service. Those three years in training were filled to the brim with work and instructions of all kinds, some sketchy education and the making of many dear friends. The true stories Century Echoes – Part XII following will partly represent our experiences there. The first one is humorous, the second one sad. Recovery At 6 o’clock the day shift left, and the night shift came on. The desk area was crowded with girls finishing their charting, and the charge nurse was making her report to the night nurses. Usually one girl was alone on a division, but since this one was the Influenza ward, there were three of us. I was sent to a room to keep a new patient in bed, a young man who was insisting on leaving minus his clothes, a result of mild delirium. So I stayed close by his bed, trying to convince him that this place was where he should be. He was busily wrapping his one foot in a towel then began looking for another foot covering. Not finding one, he slyly slipped by me and made for the door. I grabbed him but couldn’t get hold of him due to a tight union suit he had on. He started down the hall toward the girls, and I called softly, “Here he comes.” The girls jumped up and tried to catch him, but he slipped through their hands and started down the main hall. A tall man visiting his son ran with the girls, as they passed the offices more people came out to help in the capture. Nurses, visitors, and clerks all joined in the chase while I stood back on the division hilariously watching. It looked so funny to me. Perhaps it was a reaction against the sorrow around. At the end of the hospital he was caught by a clerk just before he would have leaped off a high porch. He recovered from the flu and left us, oblivious to his flight down the hall. Mom and Her Girls The autumn evening was its loveliest as I looked out of the western window and saw the sun going down in the salty sea. I was on night duty again—that shift came around too often it seemed to me—too long, thirteen hours from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. and often too busy. Now for a moment I enjoyed the sunset and the evening peace, remembering. It was so different from a year ago, 1918, when World War I ended. It was the war to end all wars we were told, and the killing epidemic of Spanish Influenza. Both had passed into history and memory, yet some memories were still strong for the maimed ones and those who had lost loved ones. Now the sky was darkening, and I turned away from the window to the demanding work waiting for me. Visiting hours were just over when two girls came in with their mother, and the clerk, who took them to a private room. One of them stopped to tell me hello and added, “We want the very best room; nothing is too good for Mom.” I followed them into the room to learn the patient’s name then hurried out to answer a bell. Later, after I had prepared Mrs. Brown for tomorrow’s mild surgery, and she was slipping into a sedative sleep, I sent the girls home, turned the lights low, and left the room. They were waiting by my desk to talk with me to tell me what to do for Mom. They spoke almost as one. “The doctor says this is a minor operation, nothing serious, just a lump on her nose that won’t heal. You will look out for her we know. She feels worried and lonely. We’re seldom separated, but she will be all right, we’re sure of that. But please watch out for her.” I smiled reassuringly, and they left, two brown-haired, slender girls, well dressed in tailored suits, pleasant to talk to, and very friendly. Later on I learned their story. Living on a limited income, they had squeezed through college and were now teaching school, making money, loving it, daring luxuries for themselves and their mother, such as this private room, and flowered plants. Mrs. Brown’s surgery was a success. After all, it had been just a small lump on her nose. In a week’s time she went home with the girls, all bills paid. On day shift some months later, I was surprised to see Mrs. Brown and the girls back again. They told me the lump had grown back, but it wouldn’t take much surgery, and she would soon be all right. The doctor had said this. During her morning care, we talked casually together. “It’s a little hard on the girls,” she told me, “so soon after the other expense.” But Mom had a private room again and flowers found their way to her bedside. She seemed all right and cheerful when she left for home with the girls. The next time I saw Mrs. Brown, she was on her way to surgery again, and she seemed pitifully pleased to see me. I promised to visit her soon. I found her next night in a ward, her bed one of many. Bandages covered her face, but when I leaned over to say hello she managed a smile. The girls came soon and greeted me as an old friend. One of them said wistfully, “She is going to have some x-ray treatments to heal her. It won’t take long.” As we walked cheerfully by Mom’s bed, I could see on their faces a troubling fear. The office clerk told me later after they had taken Mom home, that the girls had signed a note to pay the bill. I heard about Mrs. Brown’s next visit to the hospital from one of the nurses. She had lost a little more of her face, and I didn’t try to find her in the hospital. I just couldn’t. Then I graduated; such an exciting, hurrying time. We took State Board examinations, got new uniforms, class pins, received diploHISTORICAL cont. on page 11 Historical Photo BAND AT HUNTSVILLE SCHOOL CIRCA 1939 Back Row: Vernon Shaw, Shirley Burrows, Rex Ferrell, Randall Grow, Lowell Clark. Middle Row: Eleanor Montgomery, Lois Berlin, Verna Bess Ferrell, Irene Grow, Joyce Stoker. Front Row: Sharon Barnett, Karma Wangsgard, Lonnie Wangsgard, Bert Engstrom, Jesse Tracy, Keith Barnett, Mary Lou Tucker. Celeste C. 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