'We were like sisters': Memories live on for former Methodist Hospital nurses
Jun. 9—MITCHELL — Shirley Kangas and Sheila Letcher smile as they browse through memorabilia from their earlier years in the dining room of Kangas' home in Mitchell recently.
A graduation photo is among the items, as are newspaper clippings, receipts and photos. And they all connect in one way or another to the pair's experience studying and working at a hospital that was once barely a block away from Kangas' front door.
"We came here right out of school. 1958 is when we came out to start our training here. We're just across the street from where the hospital was," Kangas told the Mitchell Republic in a recent interview.
The pair — Kangas was 17 and Letcher 18 at the time — were once students and nurses at Methodist Hospital in Mitchell, an institution that started its life as Methodist State Hospital when it was constructed in 1918 and continued to serve the health care needs of Mitchell and surrounding community until 1991, when it was merged with St. Joseph's Hospital and later went on to become the current Avera Queen of Peace Hospital.
They are now two leaders with the Methodist Hospital Nurses Association, an organization founded in 1922 dedicated to honoring graduates from the hospital's school of nursing, which itself was founded in 1918 and operated until 1975, when the school and its curriculum were transferred to Dakota Wesleyan University. Hundreds of students passed through the hospital over the years, and the association has held a banquet nearly every year since 1923 to bring alumni together to reconnect.
But banquet attendance has dropped as the years have passed, and association members have decided that they will host one last banquet that will take place Saturday, June 10, at The Depot as a way to say farewell to their fellow former nurses and mark the 100th anniversary of the association.
"Last year, we were deciding whether we should have any more, and somebody said we should. And when I started looking at the history, it dawned on me that this was the 100th year," said Kangas, who serves as secretary and historian for the group.
Like other alumni members, Kangas and Letcher came to Methodist Hospital to study nursing. Kangas, a native of Sundance, Wyoming and Letcher, who grew up in Chamberlain, were both members of the graduating class of 1961, having completed their three years of training at the facility.
The pair look back fondly on those days studying with their classmates and working with patients. Kangas worked at the hospital until 1975, when she and her family moved to Wessington Springs and later Philip, though she continued to work in health care until her retirement before eventually moving back to Mitchell. Letcher remained with the hospital until 1991 and the merger, though she also continued working in health care for a time.
Letcher said patients and staff at Methodist Hospital were close, likening it a family environment.
"This is our 100th year, but we weren't there when it started. We want that clear. We arrived shortly thereafter," Letcher, who serves as the current association president, said with a laugh before turning a bit more earnest. "I think the one thing that every single graduate would say is that Methodist Hospital was a family. It was not unusual for people to work there for 25 or 30 years. We rarely had any turnover."
The two entered the nursing profession in a different era, before nurses became more specialized in their work and at a time when patients would often spend several weeks in the hospital for routine procedures. It was also a time when young nurses were working the floor not long after their arrival at the school.
"The unusual thing about the nursing program then compared to now is that we staffed the hospital after our freshman year. So we were really full-fledged nurses in our junior and senior years," Letcher said.
Along with their studies, which also included some classroom work at Dakota Wesleyan, part of their duties included giving baths, making sure patients were turned in bed and cleaning rooms after a patient departed. They started IVs and gave backrubs to patients over the course of the day. They assisted doctors with treatments and took care of the general well-being of their guests.
It was also an era where nurses were originally referred to as "handmaidens." Nurses were required to stand when a doctor, who were almost exclusively men, walked in.
"I don't think we had a female doctor until 1980-something. Even in Methodist Hospital's original handbook, we were considered handmaidens," Letcher said. "But they straightened that out by the time we got there."
Nursing evolved in practice and form as the years passed. Advances in technology and training changed the way health care is handled in a hospital environment. Older nurses like Kangas and Letcher kept up with the changes, but they admit it could be difficult to adjust.
"Technology is a good thing, but for us the hands-on patient care is what we did," Letcher said.
They got to know their patients over the course of their stays. They celebrated the births of babies and mourned the victims of deadly car crashes. With a choice of hospitals in Mitchell at the time, patients developed a loyalty to their preferred facility and would seek treatment there when they were sick or needed aid.
Patients became friends, and those patients worried about their caretakers almost as much as the nurses cared for them. They would often get Christmas cards from patients who had been discharged.
"We always prided ourselves on being bedside nurses," Letcher said. "But it always amazed me, you would step into their life at probably the worst time, and they were always so polite. I remember lots of times when patients would ask me if I'd had my lunch. But that's how patients were, and probably still are."
The Methodist Hospital building, which was located on South Miller Avenue just north of the present-day Davison County Public Safety Center, is now gone, having been demolished in 2010. The closure of the hospital in 1991 marked a sad day for those who had studied and worked there. Letcher was working at the hospital on its last night of operation.
"Yeah, that was a tough night. We didn't have very many patients, and the doctors had switched loyalty to the other places, so it was tough. We had patients who would come to us and cry. It was bittersweet," Letcher said. "It's like having your house burn down. There are no words to describe it. It was breaking up the family."
Kangas, who was working elsewhere at the time, agreed.
"It was a very sad day because the patients we had were very loyal. They kept coming back to us and so many didn't want to go to the other places. It was just a sad day," Kangas said.
The hospital may have been gone, but the Methodist Hospital Nurses Association continued to keep its memory and spirit alive with its yearly banquets. Old friends and colleagues continued to come together in Mitchell to remember, celebrate and catch up. Old stories were told and retold and memories reshared.
There were at one time over 700 members listed on the group's membership rolls, and as many as 200 members would turn up for the event. But as members got older, those numbers began to decline. Last year's banquet saw 34 attend the event, and that included the organizing committee. They expect about 55 to be in attendance at Saturday's final gathering.
"It used to be the highlight of the summer, and everybody would come back," Letcher said.
It will be sad to see the gathering come to an end, they both said, but after 100 years of celebrating Methodist Hospital, its school of nursing, their colleagues and patients, they agree it is time to end this chapter of the story.
But the story is overall a happy one, filled with memories of a team of fellow students and coworkers who still insist they were more than just colleagues. They were a family.
"It was a great time. We had a lot of fun. We were all learning the same thing, going to the same classes. So there was just this bond there," Kangas said, smiling. "We were like sisters."
