Cabinet includes school artifacts
During the Renaissance, a cabinet of curiosities was a collection of objects designed to provoke interest.
The alumnae of the Butler Memorial Hospital School of Nursing hope modern-day visitors to the hospital will be curious about the cabinet in the main tower between the glass doors and the Nixon-Sarver Education Center.
The cabinet contains artifacts, mementos and uniforms from the nearly 71-year history of the nursing school.
Dolly Bertuzzi, historian for the nurses alumni association, said it took two years from the time the cabinet was proposed at a September 2013 association meeting to become a reality. She said members had to be canvassed to provide the yearbooks, pay stubs, “Nightingale” lamps, medical instruments and nurses' caps for the exhibit, and the cabinet itself needed to be designed and built.
“It took a long time for the cabinet to be made special by Giffin Associates in Bridgeville,” said Bertuzzi.
The cabinet and its contents are meant to be a reminder of the long history of the nursing school, which was open from 1901 to 1974 and, according to 1952 class member Doris Morgan, produced 1,143 graduates of its three-year course.
“You're always a nurse,” said Morgan, who today puts in hours at the Butler Clinic.
Emma Protzman, Class of 1957, said she still does wellness seminars for the VNA.
Maybe because the schooling was so demanding is the reason its graduates don't to let their skills go unused.
Bertuzzi said, “It was a three-year course. You paid $325 tuition for three years and that was everything included.”
“I graduated on a Friday night,” said Glenna Franko, Class of 1951. “On Sunday, I was at Slippery Rock University for three months of classroom work.”
The nursing students started off with a stint in the classrooms at Slippery Rock before returning to Butler in the fall.Not that the classroom work was easy.“I had a test on the circulatory system, and I thought I had it down pat and I missed it by one point and I just sat on the curb and cried,” said Franko.On arrival in Butler, students boarded in Sarver Hall and attended classes in its basement before working shifts in the wards of the old hospital.“You got assignments of where to work in the hospital,” said Bertuzzi. “You worked under the supervision of an experienced nurse.”Protzman said, “And you had to study. You had to keep a C average.”“I don't remember too many that dropped out,” said Morgan.“Although some dropped out to get married,” said Franko.The classes were strictly female, they said, although they remember that two men graduated the nursing course in 1968.Protzman said, “We even had a house mother.”That was the formidable Beulah Murphy, who even threw Morgan's father off the floor the day he hauled Morgan's suitcase to her room, Morgan said.Protzman said, “Lights out was at 10 p.m. We used to go into the clothes closet and study with the lights on.”In addition to classes and working in the hospital, the student nurses were sent to do stints in other institutions such as Pittsburgh's Children's Hospital or the Cleveland Receiving Hospital.In addition, Protzman said, “We were often pulled to do special duty. If someone had cataract surgery, they would have their head immobilized with sandbags and we would sit with them all night.“You were never asked if you would do it, you were told, ”she said.The cabinet will serve as a monument to the work and dedication of generations of nursing students.In it the alumni have placed uniforms, the capes the student nurses used to wear, yearbooks, medical equipment and the syringes and forceps they used, as well as pay stubs and rings.“You had a lamp you used when you had your first capping,” said Bertuzzi. “You held your lamp and said the Nightingale oath.”The cabinet also contains nurses' caps. Bertuzzi said first-year students wore a cap with one stripe, second-year students a cap with two stripes and third-year students a cap with three stripes. A graduate wore a cap with a black stripe across the top.These are some of the traditions that have been seemingly forgotten with the razing of the Nixon and Sarver dormitories.Protzman said, “People should have memories. Some people didn't know there was a school of nursing. The students were a big part of the hospital.”“They needed us. Nurses were scarce back then,” said Morgan.Morgan said the cabinet was important to both let the community know of a bit of history that seems to have been relegated to the shadows and to let people know the alumni group was still active in the community.Morgan added the alumni group still offers the children and grandchildren of its members a $500 scholarship if the recipients are attending nursing school, as well as aiding the Red Cross, Meals on Wheels and the Hospital Foundation.
