REUNION ISSUE A Publication of The Frances Payne Bolton School ...

active duty, she became very involved in
local health matters in Martin County,
Florida. She worked as nursing director
for the Martin County Hospital and at
the Martin County Health Department,
and was an associate professor at St.
Joseph Junior College in Jensen Beach.
After St. Joseph closed, she was a parttime
school nurse and health teacher
at the Pine School (now St. Michael’s
School). During the early 1950s, she
invented and received a patent for a
“C-better” magnifier that increased the
markings on syringes, making it easier for
patients with diabetes and others to draw
up medications.
Joanne Birk Parsons, DN ’48, died
on June 4, 2009, at the Gainesville
Health Care Nursing Home. She was
born in Michigan and attended both
Case Western Reserve University and
the University of Michigan. She worked
as a public health nurse in Old Lyme,
Connecticut. Then returned to school
and received her bachelor of arts from
Connecticut State College and her
master’s in public health from Yale
University. Afterwards, she worked as an
instructor of nursing at Hartwick College
Former University Hospitals Nursing Leaders with former FPB
Dean Janetta MacPhail: Joan Gowin (Operating and Recovery –
Hanna Pavilion), Florence Young (Maternity – McDonald House),
Janetta MacPhail, Marion Bittman, MSN ’62, MN ’44 (Nursing
Supervisor – UH), Dalia Zemaityte, MSN ’60 (Pediatrics –
Rainbow Babies & Children’s), Margaret Ursell (Psychiatry –
Hanna Pavilion) and Helen Tobin, MSN ’57, BSN ’49 (Nursing
Staff Development – UH).
in Oneonta, New York, and was a clinical
nurse specialist at the United Hospital
Hospice in Port Chester, New York.
Louise Soule Gubanc, DN ’49, died
on April 6, 2009, at her residence in
Concord Township, Ohio, at the age of
81. She was a staff nurse at Huron Road
Hospital. She is survived by her children
Nancy, Roberta, Sandra, David and Paul.
Barbara Somerville Rogers, BSN ’50,
died on March 6, 2009, at age 86, in
Brunswick, Maine. She was born on July
18, 1922. During her nursing career, she
worked as a school nurse. She is survived
by her daughters Kathryn and Susan.
Grace Schlener Piper, BSN ’52, of
North Olmstead, Ohio, died on February
3, 2008.
Marilyn Ruth Warren, MSN ’53,
died on March 1, 2009, in Acton,
Massachusetts. After graduating high
school with a Bausch and Lomb
Honorary Science Award, she was one
of the first nurses to earn a bachelor’s
degree from Syracuse University School
of Nursing. She was involved in the
U.S. Army Cadet Nurse program during
42 The Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing Case Western Reserve University
World War II, after which she received
her master’s in nursing administration
from FPB. She was a camp nurse, director
of Nursing Services at Highland Park
General Hospital in Detroit, and a faculty
member of the then Mercy College. She
also joined the Rackham Symphony
Choir and sang with the Detroit
Symphony for several years.
Mutsue Tomonaga Kimata, BSN ’53,
of Hilo, Hawaii, a retired former Hilo
Hospital nurse, died at the age of 83 on
July 23, 2009.
Joycelyn K. Montney, BSN ’60, died
on June 19, 2009, in Clinton Township
Michigan. She is survived by her children
Maleah and Roy.
Patricia Copeland Springborn, BSN
’60, died on March 27, 2009, in St.
Petersburg, Florida.
This memorial section lists deceased
alumni and friends of the Frances Payne
Bolton School of Nursing for whom death
notices were received between February 1
and August 31, 2009.
Margaret Ursell, an FPB honorary alumna, passed away in August
2009. As a young nurse, she trained in England before moving to the
United States to pursue a career as a psychiatric mental health nurse.
She appears in the book To Redeem One Person is to Redeem the World:
The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, as the head nurse at Charity
Lodge, an asylum in Maryland in the late 1940s. In 1965, she joined
University Hospitals of Cleveland (UH) as the assistant director of
Psychiatric Nursing at Hanna Pavilion during a pilot phase of UH
Nursing Department decentralization. In 1968, she became Director-
Chairman of the UH Psychiatric Nursing Department, later sharing
the position in 1971 with June I. Watt, who had served as chairman of
the psychiatric clinical faculty at FPB. Miss Ursell was adored by her
students, to whom she provided clinical leadership for learning about
mental health and psychiatric nursing.
Mary Adams, former FPB assistant professor, died on August 25,
2009, at Avera McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota,
at the age of 84. She earned her doctorate in nursing and later
served as a professor in several mid-western states. In the fall of
1990, Dr. Adams was appointed dean of the South Dakota State
University’s College of Nursing in Brookings. Her professional
achievements included obtaining federal funding for the Nurse
Practitioner Project for nurses on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud
Indian reservations in South Dakota.