Anna Louise Tittman Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Anna Tittman 42
A. Post i=- course, it was a postgraduate course.
Q. How did you get into that?
A. Just applied.
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Q. How did you hear about it, or what mde you feel like ou wanted to do it?
A. I must've read about it or aomthbg. I don't how ho I did.
Q. Wmlt that an unusual project for those days?
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A. Yes, it was. It was only active in the smrtime; t
half months. They had, on Wiggelsworth Street, an On the
as they called it and it was not active in the smrtm;
came down to the boat. Then in the wintertime they took
babies in the shore hospital]. They had a superintendent
I had the postgraduate course first. bhy nurses cam
this Dr. Blankmyer I spoke of before, he studied the
one surm~r. Now I wasn't there that summer. The firs
graduate course. The next smmr I went back and I
a w-. I think after two years probably I was he
then I was a teacher to the nurses about nursing.
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Q. Were these sick children, I man was it like . . . 1
A. Now at that the the city of Boston was so hot; no sue* thing as cold
air anywhere, out on the ocean or on the shore. That's th* mason they
took the b-abies there. There were so many cases of spoilec$ milk or mflk
that didn't agree with the babies. And the mthers didn't know how to
rrake the formulas and all that, so we tawt them.
&.
Did the mothers go on the ship with you?
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A. Oh, yes. Some went on the ship and some left the babi+s that were kept
24 hours, The boat went out, oh, 15 or 20 miles maybe, drqpped anchor,
floated around and got these lovely breezes. Then it went into shore to
the pier-it had its own pier-at five o'clock and the pm,$nbs were all
there waiting to corn and visit their babies. The doctor, the resident
physician, had been around on the ward and got a report on every one of
the children. When I was head nurse of the ward, QI doeto$, the resident
physician at the th~
I was on, had previously been one of the doctors that
stayed on the board. They had young doctors who M just Wuated or even
post graduates. But he would corn mund, bed to bed, to pt a report
fkom me as head nurse.
Q. You would mve with him fYorn bed to bed?
A. That's right. When he got to be a real ,pod f'riend of imine, he said
[to me as we mved th@ the ward] "Wl11," one bed, "You4" next bed.
Next bed was, "GoFt (chuckle) :We
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