Looking Back,...

Part of my personal "Adirondack View" is looking back at my family's past. The summer of 1924 my mother had just graduated from high school. She had chosen nursing as her career. She also had decided to not stay close to home, but to travel to Amsterdam City Hospital near Schenectady, NY to complete her nurses training. This is a newsprint photo of the hospital at that time. I believe the hospital is now called Amsterdam Memorial Hospital and is in a totally new building and locaton.

Nursing students stayed at the house next door to the hospital. Can you see the nurses sitting on the porch?

My mother's class called themslves "The Baseball Nine"... Mom is on the far left.

This photo, Mom again on the left, shows the uniforms of the day.

What do you think about this operating room?

As I remember Mom told me this was the sterilizer. This is one of her friends posing for the picture.

Mom in her "scrubs"...

After she graduated she went on to New York City to do post graduate study at Manhatten Eye and Ear (as it was called then). She lived in NYC for several years sharing an apartment with some of her nursing classmates.

As much as my mother loved nursing, she loved my father more. So after their marriage they settled in a more rural area where my father worked for the local power company. (another story for another day...) There was no large hospital locally so she spent several years doing private duty in her home town. She went on and worked many years as a bookkeeper, assistant librarian in the town library and also as a teacher aide in the school. She was a bright and capable woman. She set a wonderful example for me to follow.