The St. Margaret Hospital School of Nursing 1919 to 1967

Gayle Faulkner-Kosalko November 2024

There was a time, not so long ago, that there were few career options opened to young women after high school.  One could become a secretary.  Those going on to further their education might choose teaching.  In many cases,  many young women chose to become nurses for after the War, many nurses were needed.

Nursing programs were not available at local colleges.  The most popular nursing programs were those associated with hospitals themselves which offered 3 year nursing programs with students living on the hospital campus and getting hours of first-hand experiences.

For many of our Whiting and Robertsdale young women, the St. Margaret’s Hospital School of Nursing offered them the opportunity of preparing for a role in the world of medicine.

As you can read on this website, there is an article on the history of St. Margaret’s Hospital itself.  The hospital was run by the Poor Sisters of St. Francis Seraph of Perpetual Adoration, three of whom arrived in Hammond on February 2, 1898 to purchase  a small farmhouse which would become their hospital.  

Twenty-one years later, the hospital opened a nursing school under St. M. Adelberta, R. N. with five young female students.  The students lived in the original hospital house on Clinton Street when they arrived in  1919 to the new St. Margaret’s Hospital School of Nursing.    In a few years, the State recognized the school by the State as a standardized accredited school, a rating they maintained throughout their forty-eight years of holding classes.  All subjects necessary for nurses’ training were covered in the early curriculum except for Pediatrics.   St. Margaret’s did not have a children’s ward,  so to complete their students’ education in all aspects of nursing, St. Margaret students worked in the children’s area at Memorial Hospital in Chicago.  The nursing students lived on the fourth floor of St. Margaret’s.  This floor later became the pediatrics floor.

The school was also associated with St. Joseph in Rensselaer, Indiana.  Courses on Christian morality  were taught by the Rensselaer priests to the student nurses. 

According to a history of the school written by Sister M. Huberta Kiefer in 1967, the aim of the school was “to inspire young women with high ideals of service to God and to humanity and to develop in these same young women desirable traits of character and personality as well as skill in the science and art of nursing.”

Although the school was Catholic, many of its students were not and all were given the chance to visit their own houses of worship on weekends.  But Christian morality was the keystone on which the school was built.  No matter their religion, each day began with the nun’s ringing of a handbell at 5:30am.  Each student then went to Chapel as one was required to attend Mass, followed by morning prayers.   After breakfast at 7am, they started their daily rounds and classes.  With four breaks during their day, the students were at the task from 7:30am to 7:30pm either in the classroom or on the floor, getting practical experiences.

After having graduated from Clark High School, Elaine Doerr Fechalos, known to her classmates and friends as Tillie, entered the nursing program in 1957. She explained that her desire to become a nurse had always been there,  even during childhood.

“I wanted to be like my Grandma.  When there was illness in the family, she was always right there and I was the one they sent for to help by watching the little kids,” she remembered.

For herself and many of the girls, St. Margaret’s was their obvious choice because not only was it not far, far away, it was also much more affordable than the other nursing schools around. 

“When we entered, we were given a Big Sister to help and watch over  you and you were WORKING in the hospital from Day 1,” Tillie said.  “Right away we learned how to read vital signs.  You learned to make a  hospital bed correctly and a Sister would come in each morning and inspect your bed.”  

There were many honored traditions as students rose up in the ranks at the school.  Probably the first and one of the most memorable was the “Capping Ceremony” when one received her cap, which she wore each day.

It was part of their uniform.  In 1957 the Sisters decided that their junior class students would now receive a diagonal strip of narrow black ribbon on the left wing of the cap.  This distinguished them from underclassmen.   The cap itself was designed by Sister M. Edwarda who was one of the early founders of the hospital.  The cap, made of white linen, was folded such that the band encircled the crown of the hair and extended one inch about the head. 

Upon becoming seniors, the girls would receive two narrow velvet stripes fastened across the entire band of the cap.  On graduation they then received their graduate School of Nursing pin.  The symbol on the pin is three bronze gold pieces which represent St. Joseph, the patron of the Order of the Sisters and St. Francis as well as purity of intention.  The wording on the pin is “Vita Aliis Vota” which means “Our Lives Devoted to Others.”  The blue enamel around the pin is the Blessed Virgin’s color and the outer circles with three knots represents the Franciscan cord, which are the three vows taken by the nuns…Poverty, Chastity and Obedience.  St. Joseph Catholic Church in Hammond’s Atheneaum building behind the church was the venue for graduation ceremonies in the early years.  

Today’s nurses wear scrubs, slacks and comfortable shoes, anything to make their long hours easier and more efficient, but there was much more protocol in the 1950’s.  Besides their white cap, the girls wore their starched white uniform every day, complete with white stockings and nurses’ shoes.   (Tillie did give out the secret about how the caps stayed so nicely on their  heads….there was a comb on the inside front)

Even though many girls were just a bus ride away from home, most stayed on campus each weekend.  The nuns helped provide a collegiate experience outside of the intense and demanding studies program and the girls enjoyed their free time.

Tillie remembers how often she and her girlfriends walked down to Goldblatt’s for yet another pair of white nylons…along with cookies and baloney!

“We used to walk to John’s Pizza on State Street back in the day.  That’s when State Street had all the stripper clubs and we’d walk by and peek into a window or two,” Tillie laughed.  “You had these guys hawking outside to bring you in.”

There were freshmen picnics, baseball games, and welcoming teas.  The girls would go to the Paramount  and Parthenon…just a few blocks away from the hospital.  They had parties and dances and proms and many of their dances were held at St. Joseph’s Atheneum.

“We’d go with the Rensselaer boys, and go down for their football games,” she said.   “Because we had their priests teaching us at St. Margaret’s too, we bonded with the guys.”

The young women had a choir called The St.  Margaret School of Nursing Choral Club which went all the way to St. Louis to perform for convention in the 1949.  Later in the early 1960s, a trio of singing nurses got together and under the name of   “The Sponge Count,” entertained in the area and even down in Indianapolis.  There were theatricals produced by the school as well at the Masonic Lodge.  There was a Journal Club too.  There was a Miss Student Nurse contest held by the Indiana Association of Student Nurses and one of the St. Margaret’s girl took that state prize. And a special treat in 1950 was when the student nurses received their first TV in their nurse’s home.  And in 1952 the first Student Faculty Association was founded.

The community knew the student nurses from St. Margaret well as they as a group tried to be as involved in the community as much as they could.  1948  marked the 75 Anniversary of the Nursing Profession in America.  From President Truman to the State Governors to local Mayors, tribute was paid to the nurses.  St. Margaret’s had displays in all the store windows on Hohman Avenue and the TIME did a full story of the young nurses and their profession as well. 

“We would do parades in Nurses Day Parade marching in full uniform down the street of Gary.” Tillie said.    Full uniforms consisted of their white nurse dresses worn with their beautiful full length capes which were steel grey and had their St. Margaret  insignia  in red on it.  The cape was red on the inside. 

During the war years, First Aid classes were taught at the hospital and in 1943, of the 82 doctor on staff, 23 had left for military service.  There was a plea from St. Margarets for alumnae to come and work at the hospital even if only for a few hours a day because they were short staffed.  Thirty-six St. Margaret graduates had already enlisted in the service. 

That year Sister M. Amandina, Director,  initiated the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps Program which had its own strict rules and regulations that had to be enforced according to government dictate.  It was the school’s contribution to the war effort.

In 1946 the Surgeon General awarded the nursing school’s faculty Public Health Service awards for recognition of their teaching.  The certificate read in part  “You have produced the graduate nurses of tomorrow who will be a vital factor in the public health of our country.”

Tillie said that the relationship among the students were sisterly.      

“There were rules to be obeyed and you developed a sisterhood.  You were so close with each other.  There was that respect you had for each other. It’s hard to explain and maybe it can’t be explained,” she said.  “There are friendships in life but this was a sisterhood.”

She was closest to Marianne Tgosik and their friendship continued until Marianne’s passing.  Experiences at the school often strengthened  the bond between these young girls.

There were many tough assignments, especially at the beginning.  Tillie remembers her first autopsy as being the roughest.  Later as she would be working in the wards,  “You’re with the patients always hoping that they’re going to get better,”  she added.

“But the first time you lose a patient, you cry, especially if it was a child,” she said quietly.  “It was very difficult.”

Aside from their studies at the hospital those three years on anatomy, physiology, operating room techniques, embryology, dermatology and pathology and laboratory techniques, the nurses were required to live off campus for study as well.  Tillie spent three months at a municipal tuberculosis sanitarium. She remembers how lovely the grounds were but saddened by the fact that she knew most of these patients would never be able to leave the sanitarium.

A little more harrowing was her stay at the Dr. Norman Beatty Memorial Hospital, Westville Indiana with its 1200 patients and where Tillie lived for three months while studying psychiatry.  It was here students learned methods of treatment such as hydrotherapy and recreational, occupational and music therapy.  Among the criminally insane living there, she said many patients came out of the military.  When she was there, shock treatment was still being used as therapy.  

As for dealing with the individual patients “I just remember you would go in to dispense their medication and that big door locked behind you,” she remembered.  “But for safety’s sake, there was always a big male with you for protection.”

Tillie recalls Sister Florian who had such influence on these girls in the program.

 “St. Florian had been in outside world and she related to us women.  Besides all the sciences and technique, there was something else our instructors taught.  They were there teaching us how to be women,” Tillie explained.  “That education was so well rounded with so many blessing on us young girls to go and develop in our careers.”

And there were so many different paths one could follow when they passed their State Boards. One could work in industry, education, or the public health systems.  One could continue in a hospital, a clinic or work in a doctor’s office.  Early graduate Ann Devoy chose the military and later became Whiting’s City Nurse. Tillie herself had worked in a variety  of  different hospital positions during her decades of nursing.

It was back in 1925 that a Nurse Alumni Association was formed and still remains alive and well even though the school over five decades ago.  Young women who came into the program when Tillie did, all graduated together in 1960.  After graduation they still get together with other nurses from other classes at Teibolts to honor those who were going to graduate that year as well as enjoying a reunion of former graduates.   Sometimes there would be over 100 women attending the memorial mass and then the luncheon. The organization also served as a fund raiser for the nursing school. Tillie said it was Marilyn Brerton Fortin who was behind keeping the tradition going for years and years since Tillie’s graduation.

Tillie’s career and her life was so influenced by St. Margaret’s School of Nursing.  She is also grateful to the influence of her parents and living her Catholic faith through school and church at St. John the Baptist in Whiting.

“It’s what was developed in me by those influences,” she added.  “And I can’t tell you what that hospital meant to us girls.”

Over 730 young ladies graduated with nursing degrees from 1919 to 1967 when the school closed.

The graduation ceremony, according to its written history in 1941, was very dramatic,  at least back then.  All the graduates would stand in a semi-circle on the platform.  In the center was a person dressed as Florence Nightingale and another who dressed as a modern nurse.  She handed their caps to Sister Superior who presented them to the individual class members.  The students would file by her and light their Nightengale candles from hers.  When  all were capped, together they would solemnly recite the Nightingale Pledge together.  Part of it reads:  “I solemnly pledge myself before God and this assembly: to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully.”

It was in the spring of 1965 that the decision to close down the nursing program began.  Because of the new building program undertaken by the Hospital administration, and because the north wing where the Nurses’ Residence was had been condemned as a fire hazard, it had to be replaced as soon as possible.  According to the Hospital board this would be a financial impossibility.  

And now there were newer trends in nursing education and at this point two year nursing educational programs were  popular in colleges and universities.  So it was in 1967 the final graduating class of the St. Margaret’s Hospital Nursing School were capped and ready to face the ever changing world of medicine.

The Whiting-Robertsdale Women Nurse Graduates:

Ann Devoy Bernadette Skalka Carol Mihalso Lukasik

Carol Schafer Korman Elaine Doer Fechalos Elizabeth Grdina Fritz 

Eveyln Micoley White     Frances Kujawa Tobin Gayle Pustek Murad

Gloria Dijak Portney Helen Burosh    Irene Teets

Janet Comstock Zahorsky Janice Dvorscak Klepitch Jean Roe Haddad

Joann Szlanda Joanna M. Hane Grdina Judy Ann Zondor Ilijanich

Kathryn Grenchik Schiml Lillian Stofko Rau Mariane Hora Shebish

Marilyn Bryerton Fortin Martha Baran Hamusin Martha Machaj Sabo

Mary Ann Domsich Mary Ann Hlebasko Mary Ann Troksa 

Rosemary Troksa Ruth Furiak Sauer Sandra Dvorscak

Sharon Nagy Moynihan Mary Duron Moredich Mary Gemer Kish

Maryann Tegosik Mildred Headley Flynn Monica Shebish Schafer

Patricia Kryszak Hlebasko Patricia Pustek Torsewski Phyllis Burosh   

Rita Pishkur   Rosalyn Chalko Shirley Coil Kapitan

Shirley Hobbs Nowak Tula Fetsis Lunsford  Valerie Tkacz

Carole Kerr Greathouse Georgine Hlebasko Sutkowski Mary Duron Moredich

(These are listed by their first names as we don’t know many of their married names.  If you know of any other graduate in our community from St. Margaret’s School that is  not on this list, please write to Gayle  at  puccini99@aol.com so that we can add their name to our website)