Anna Louise Tittman Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Anna Tittman
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Then there was a Miss Aseltine down from a little town, MQlmls, it was,
i s , 1 0 s %e was director of the nursing school there. And
there was a graduate whose nam I can1 t think of from St. !Maryts Hospital,
nice person. There were Eve of us.
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After this new law cam into effect, we had a representat ve from . . .
that wanted to lower standards. She learned a lot. (chu les ) But she
was nice and all.
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Q. Youtd mntioned the Red Cross earlier. Were they In this board or
In on the decisions?
A. No, no. They didn ' t have any special--but the nurses b o were--well ,
you made your own decision whether you wanted to belong td the Red Cross
or not, you see, and the Red Cross nursing semi-ce . I am no longer a men+
ber of that. Men you become a certain age-now I did a Wt of--well, I
could leave my job when I was in the state, long enough to go to Charleston
to handle the nurse who helped work on the cyclone down tkre. That was
in 1915. Then another tlime I went to Pekin because the S~day School boat
went down. There were many drawned. There was work to ba done thew. That
was only a few days for me, but we had to take care of tha hones, tocp. When
there was a death in [the] family, we had to gt pmvisiorp for them-towell,
help them make ayrangemnts and so forth.
Q. I didn't realize that those kinds of things were done
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A. k Chxrleston, we had . . . j
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Q. In Charleston, which state is this?
A. Illinois. There was another one [cyclone] at Mattoon which was just
down the rallmad from me. I was in cha~ge at Charleston. The hospital
operating room had been hit, and therefom, we built up a temporary hospital
on the second floor of an empty building downtown. The b e turned over the
front part of their building to us to use as an office. It 's very satisfp
Fng kind of work, but you feel the pain along with it. B& you feel that
you're gett- things done and in the Charleston business, for instance,
a worn went out to pick up her little chicks, and she had them in her apron.
And the chickies lived and she didn't. She was struck. Then there was something
else that impressed IE and I haven't forgotten it. On the first holiday
that some rnen had In a distant city, they care in with their
shovels on their shoulders to help clean up. You every day
for a long tb, and the people would 13e found
and trying to dry them out. It was pathetic.
I happened to go to Siberia.
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Q. How did you get assigned to these cases? Md the Red ross send you
to Charlest on?
A. They didn't send m. If I couldn't go, I couldntt go. They'd have to
get sombody else, but I was in, charge, you see. We were lwlteers . We
didn't get paid for it.