Anna Louise Tittman Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

~nna ~ittm I 26
Q. No, no. I'm amazed you mte a thesis in the ei&th grade.
A. Well, I call< kt a thesis. (laughter) It was an essd mybe. But a
man from Chicago University, I suppose he was getting his doctorate's
degree, was interested in w8dt)lg a rhetoric. And the rhatoric need~d to
have differentsaqles of ekhth grade--I suppose
So I had the title of '%hat I qould like to be
all I knew
line in that paper who went to Louisiana and worked as a qwse in the war.
Q. Which war was it this nurse was vadting about?
A. The Civil Wm. So, ewer after--and then when I was wa-king at Hemdon's
and living-well, when I lived at the minister's, tWng @re of their child,
the mhlxter~s wife had wanted to be a nurse, so that helwd build on my--
that I could do it, you see. I didnl t know much about n-y &thing traning
or anything. She told m that. Oh, that definitely settwd it, and I was
going to be it or else. So that has made a difference in @he fact that I'm
single and not a grandnother or a mther and a grandmthen and a great-grandmother.
I'm just a great aunt and a grandaunt. Well, is /there anymre about
that ?
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Q. If you think of anything else you want to tell me the old Springfield
Hospital or other doctors that you mt or other
A. Well, I did tell you about the cleanlag that the nu& had to dO and
how a group would clean the elevator up in there and so fvh. And I was
too little to reach it, so I didn't get in on that.
Q. Sounds to E like they used you student nu~ses as sc
you and I discussed the other day, too.
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maids which
A. Yes, yes. Then I told that I had scrubbed the floor the night before
I graduated, the operating room floor, didn't I?
Q. Yes. You were going to tell me about your graduation dress, about how
you mde your dress.
A. Oh, that was from the training. I had to have a whitel miform.
Q. Was this graduating from nurses t rw?
A. Yes, the basic co~&~e, I caJ1 it, because I was defieely going to
it was only a two year cowse; that was accepted
for state
first. That was later th8t there was a
law, even, or offering registrationi. It was not cornpulsory
mtil later.
9. So you never had to pass stbbe e m ?
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