For graduates of former Beverly nursing school, a final reunion
Jun. 15—BEVERLY — It's been 50 years since the Beverly Hospital School of Nursing closed its doors for good. But the institution that has long faded from public view had one last hurrah on Tuesday.
More than 100 people gathered at Danversport for the final banquet of the Beverly Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association. With even its youngest members now in their 70s, the organization has decided to discontinue its reunions.
That finality lent an air of sadness to the event but also crystalized the significance of the school, which operated for nearly a century, from 1896 to 1972, and produced thousands of nurses who worked on the North Shore.
"It was wonderful," said Karen Noce, who graduated with the final class in 1972 and is still working as a nurse. "The training was exemplary."
The Beverly Hospital School of Nursing offered a three-year program in which the student nurses lived in a dorm-style building on the hospital campus for 11 months of the year. They would take classes during the day and work and train in the hospital at night.
Trudy Dearborn, 90, of Peabody, who graduated in 1953, recalled getting off her eight-hour night shift at 7 a.m., grabbing breakfast, and reporting to class at 8 a.m.
"It was stressful," she said. "Many times you were ready to quit. You had a 44-hour work week, plus classes. I wanted to be a nurse so bad that I went through it."
The alumnae said the hands-on training they received was so good they would be given responsibilities above and beyond what student nurses would be allowed today.
"We were in charge of floors as students," said Joanne Lund, of Salem, a Class of '72 graduate. "We had the best training that no baccalaureate program could ever provide."
As they gathered for their last banquet, many graduates had stories about their life in the hospital campus dorm. Their comings and goings were carefully monitored, with a "housemother" at the front desk serving as gatekeeper. Dearborn said the nursing students weren't allowed to be married during her time. Lund said visits from male friends were restricted to areas of the dorm called "beau parlors."
"I was an only child and then I had all these sisters," said Noce, waving her arm in the direction of her fellow Class of '72 graduates seated at the table. "Boy, did I learn a lot."
Dearborn said it wasn't unusual at the time for a hospital to have its own nursing school. She recalled similar schools at hospitals in Salem and Lynn. As colleges and universities began offering nursing degree programs, the hospital-run schools began to wane.
The fact that this was the final reunion was enough to prompt Louise Talbot to make the trip up from her home in Port Charlotte, Florida. Talbot, who grew up in Beverly, is 97 years old. She attended the school during World War II, graduated in 1945, and went on to work at Beverly Hospital for 18 years.
Polly Cain, Class of 1963, was the third member of her family to graduate from the school, following her mother in 1935 and her sister in 1960. At 80, Cain is president of the alumnae association and said everyone in the group has "aged out" in terms of wanting to organize another reunion. The alumnae association itself dates to 1916.
Cain said the reunions have gone on for so long because of the strong bonds that the school forged among the young nurses during their long days and nights in the dorm and on the hospital wards.
"We were living together for three years," she said. "That's why we're all so close."
Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.
Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.
