Fearless Females Working Women

This is the picture of my grandmother Minnie Elizabeth Spahn in May 1905. This was her nursing school graduation from New York Metropolitan Hospital on Blackwells Island, New York. She was not quite 20 yrs old, she would be 20 on Oct. 6th. I never heard stories of her working as a nurse, but she must have because later in life she was a widow and still had children at home.
Nursing sure has changed in 105 years.



My Mom (second-mom) worked as a nurse also. She was an army nurse during World War II and she was the nurse who took care of my mother when she died of breast cancer. I can remember her working in a hospital in Flushing, Booth Memorial Hospital. This is a picture of the charm bracket her co-workers gave her in 3-6-59 from the OBS staff. This is just before we moved to Florida. She obviously was well liked by her co-workers. She also worked at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale Florida when we moved there. I do not have a picture of her in her uniform, just the ones in my mind of her coming home and sitting like a rag doll in a chair.


This is me on graduation day from LPN school, Sept of 1966 age 18.
I was also a nurse at the same hospital while I was an LPN and going to school to earn my RN. Big mistake to work were your mother had worked. Plus Mom was a very nice person. If there was a nice way to say something she had a nicer way. I on the other hand have a tendency to say it like I see it. I frequently have hoof and mouth disease. I do have to admit I have learned to calm it down a lot since I was in my late teens. I have been a nurse since I was 18, enter nursing school at 17.


This is a picture of me as a RN student, Feb of 1971 I was 23. Mom never wanted me to be a nurse, she said it was hard work. Boy was she right. I have never regretted my decision to be a nurse.

I think this counts as three generations of nurses! Spanning 105 years.