If you know anyone who went to the Ohio Valley, Trinity Health System school(s), give them a call! ‘Nursing’ a project - Steubenville, Wintersville, Toronto, Mingo, Weirton, Jefferson County | News, Sports, Jobs, HeraldStarOnline.com

Blanche Williams smiles as she reads some of the rules and regulations in place when she was a student from 1955-58 at the old Ohio Valley School of Nursing, now Trinity Health System School of Nursing.

"Please instruct your visitors to ring the front door bell and ask the house mother to notify you. Mothers, sisters and girlfriends may be taken to the student's room only upon permission of the house mother on duty at the time of the visit," she begins.

"Students are to wear house coats or robes when leaving their bedrooms," Williams said, allowing a reading lapse that produces a chuckle.

"Students may wear robes when studying in the nursing arts classroom at night provided they use the back steps and close the class doors and venetian blinds," she continues, a chorus of laughter erupting from a gathering of some other back-in-the-day school alumni in her midst.

"We ask that you refrain from calling from windows as it is annoying to other nurses and disturbing to those trying to rest."

Williams stops, returning the pages of rules to an assortment of other memorabilia from the school's early days. She's made her point - much has changed through the years since the school was founded in 1912 at a time when the hospital provided room, board and laundry.

"There was no tuition, and the nursing students were allotted an allowance of $10 per month the first two years and $12 per month the third year," Williams explained of what was the case at one point in the school's existence.

The history of the school and the memories of its graduates combine for common-denominator conversation among members of the recently organized Ohio Valley Hospital/Trinity School of Nursing Alumni Association.
Williams, the association's president, explained the group was formed two years ago, the vision of Sharon Elliott, a nursing instructor at Trinity School of Nursing.

"Although Sharon is not a graduate of the school, she realized there was no formal alumni association and worked diligently to make it happen," Williams said.

And so it came to be, its arms open to all graduates of the school, its annual dues a mere $7. Meetings are held twice a year, in April and October, at 5 p.m. on the third Wednesday of the month, getting under way with a covered-dish dinner, at Starkdale Presbyterian Church.

With about 30 members so far from a school that has graduated more than 2,000 nurses, the alumni association "is dedicated to foster professional and social fellowship among the graduates and to support the school of nursing's mission to educate future generations of registered nurses."

A small group of graduates from the 1950s gathered recently to talk about the association, to reminisce about their school days and to promote what is the association's first major project - generating funds and memorabilia to have a memorial exhibit in the main lobby at Trinity Medical Center East.

"Financial help and donations of memorabilia are needed to make this project a success," Williams said, explaining the lobby has been deemed a fitting place for the display given its proximity to school.

Anyone interested in making a contribution of funds or memorabilia that can be added to the exhibit - be it old student uniforms, shoes, old medical equipment or any other items of interest - can contact Williams by phone at (740) 282-6502 or by e-email at blanchew301@comcast.net.

Checks can be made payable to the Ohio Valley Hospital/Trinity School of Nursing Alumni Association and mailed to the attention of Williams at 301 Williams Blvd., Wintersville, OH 43953.

The project will proceed as funds become available but so far some memorabilia has been collected and the display case configured - one cabinet maker John Humpe has been commissioned to do. It will be 8-feet tall, 8-feet wide and 2-feet deep, Williams said.

"We have a lot of memorabilia that we've collected from the various members, and we have old uniforms, some medical equipment, books, just a lot of old things that bring back memories to us and will honor the school because this is a memorial to us as nurses and as graduates," Williams gestured to the fellow classmates around her.

Williams made a similar appeal in a letter announcing the association's April gathering. "This is a big project and will take some time to complete. We will be starting small and hopefully adding more as time goes on," she wrote. "This is our memorial honoring us as alumni and a very special place that many of us called home during our student years."

In line with collecting for the exhibit, Williams is intent upon collecting information for another project - a written history of the school punctuated with personal stories she is encouraging members to submit.

"Remember girls - time is marching on for all of us," she wrote in the letter of invitation. "So, if we are to accomplish this project, now is the time before the memorabilia and memories are lost forever. We need to preserve what we have."

Others in the group share that vision.

"It's good to remember our nursing experience and the good times we had then. We were like a family. We all kind of stuck together, even after we graduated. It was just a good experience in my life," said Charlamayne Biacco from the Class of 1958 who worked 44 years as a nurse before her retirement in 2003.

In the school's early history, students had to live on campus, had "mandatory study halls from 8 to 10," room checks and lights were out at 10:30 p.m. And being married was a no-no.

Caps came at four months, one stripe after a year, two stripes at two years. The program for them covered three years - 1,095 days, according to Martha Jane Brondos, a graduate of the Class of 1952 who worked 51 years as a nurse before her retirement in 2003. "I used to mark it off," she said with conviction of her school calendar countdown.

Brondos and Ella Jane Burns, Class of 1953, both recalled two events they survived as student nurses: The major snow storm of November 1950 that crippled the area and a serious bus accident in Steubenville that produced many patients with many injuries.

"The student nurses had to work the floor because the RNs couldn't get in here, and we were brand new students nurses not knowing anything, but we did the best that we could and everyone got taken care of," said Burns, a nurse with 50 years' experience before her retirement in 2003.

The bus accident, according to Brondos, happened in 1951. "I was in surgery for 50 some hours. There were 43 patients admitted to this hospital," Brondos said of what she described as "the most depressing night I ever lived through."

Suzie Rousey, a graduate of the Class of 1959, fondly remembered Sara Groves, who served as the school's director of nursing at the time. "She was tall and stately and always looked like a nurse - high hat, high shoes, long sleeves. She made the rounds on the floor every day, she came in the room to check on what the students were doing and made sure the beds (their sheets and blankets) were tight enough. You could bounce a quarter off them. We certainly respected her," Rousey said.
She was feared, too.

Rousey recalled the time she thought a fellow student was playing a trick on her, knocking on her dorm door at night and imitating Groves' voice. "I didn't let her in," Rousey said, a response that led to being called into Groves' office and "campused for one week - no phone calls, no mail, no nothing."

Faith Wamsley Mazik, Class of 1958, and Daneen Manalac, Class of 1957, recalled their three-month psychiatric training time at St. Francis in Pittsburgh to be a not-so-pleasant memory.

"I'd say it was my most frightening experience in school," Mazik said.

"Before they went into treatment, I had to collect their teeth (dentures), and I was afraid I'd mixed them up."

Manalac said, "The way you were treated there, it was like being in prison and then on the floor, the nuns were very tough."

Mazik, who said she made $11 a day when she first started working in 1958, has lots of good school memories. "Had I not had my schooling in the nurses training program, I would have been destitute."

She added that while the association is working to have the exhibit, it also exists to hopefully offer scholarships.

Mazik serves as vice president of the association. Manalac is secretary, and Judy Owings is treasurer.