Oral history interview with Lavonne Beach, 1991 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: LaVonne Beach
INTERVIEWER: Linda Danford
DATE: April 23, 1991
[Begin Side A]
LD: Mrs. Beach, can you tell me when you came to UNCG [The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro] and what course of study you pursued there?
LB: Okay. I came in 1966 to pursue a BSN in nursing.
LD: And was there a four-year program at UNCG at that time?
LB: It was the first year of the four-year program.
LD: And how did you hear about the program?
LB: Actually, I was at St. Mary's [Raleigh, North Carolina] in preparatory school and had applied
at Virginia Medical and UNCG. The reason I applied at UNCG is that I had a sister in
Greensboro, and I'm a small-town girl and didn't want to go far from home. And so, when I
was accepted at both schools, I decided on UNCG based on the family ties I had in
Greensboro.
LD: What course of study did you start out with? What did you do the first two years?
LB: Liberal arts, primarily, with much science integrated into the curriculum. And then, in the
last two years, primarily nursing.
LD: And what—did they have that summer orientation course that first year, or was that
developed later?
LB: No, they didn't. That was developed later, yes.
LD: Can you tell me something about the professors that you had in the nursing program?
LB: Well, we had a lot of fun. It was—there were almost as many professors as there were
students. I think there were seventeen of us in the class. I had absolutely no idea what it was
like to be a nurse. And was not even certain I wanted to be one at the time. My mother had
always wanted to be one, so had a lot of influence over whether I was going to be one or not.
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And Ernestine Small was my clinical instructor and the first week that I spent on the
medical surgical floor at [Moses H.] Cone [Memorial Hospital], I fainted twice in one day
and was ready to pack my bags and was on the way out of Moses Cone, as a matter of fact,
when Ernestine caught up with me and told me that I really should not quit at this point.
[laughs] And I assured her that I had never seen a nurse lying on the floor and I was certain
that I was not a good candidate for nursing. And then she took me to the soda shop and gave
me some antidotes about what had happened to her as a nursing student and how the culture
was very different and encouraged me to stay just to the end of the semester. And by that
time, I had come around. [Dr. Sandra] Micqui Reed, who taught us pediatrics, it was like
having a fun child teach you pediatrics, and she was wonderful. Margaret [Catherine] Moore,
who tried to keep my three tri-cornered hat on my head—it always was to the side, and she
would send me to the bathroom every morning that I arrived at clinical to straighten my hat.
They are the three that had the early impact on me. And then, of course, Margaret Klemmer,
as we got into maternal child, was just a very caring and adoring person and I liked health
and well-being and began to feel my niche in maternal-child and women's health as I entered
the maternity component as well as community health. And that was all a part of that year.
And had our obstetrical experience at Wesley Long [Hospital] and we were very busy, and it
was a lot fun and I thought, "Well, if I have to make money for the rest of my life, why
wouldn't I do it in something that I really, really enjoyed." And so pursued, after graduation,
of course, the maternal-child.
LD: That was your field?
LB: Yes.
LD: And that was how you ended up here?
LB: At Cone, yes.
LD: Where did you first go to practice nursing when you graduated?
LB: I went to Cone, and it's very interesting. I'd—what I'm going to say sounds derogatory, but
there was not a lot of interest in having BSN nurses at Wesley Long, and I would have
practiced there.
LD: In having what?
LB: BSNs.
LD: Oh, BSN nurses.
LB: Yeah. Four-year-degree nurses. And I went to talk to the folks at Wesley Long about
working there, and they didn't have a job opportunity or indicated they didn't have a job
opportunity for me after graduation. Now I was really very disappointed because that is
where most of the maternity was going on at the time. They did approximately two to two
and a half times as many deliveries as we did at Cone. And so I was very disappointed. I
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wanted to be where the action was when I got out of school. And so I went to Moses Cone
only because I was married and my husband was working in Greensboro, and I knew that I
was going to be working in Greensboro. I just wanted to work where there was a lot of
activity.
LD: Now that you mention that, I remember—maybe it was Margaret Klemmer told me—that
they had difficulty getting Wesley Long to agree to let their students do their practical
experience there. So, was it because four year nurses were not that common?
LB: They were not that common and not that accepted. They were really a threat to the nursing
profession. And for most of us, who, at that time, were entering nursing, we didn't
understand the pressure. We only knew that we were four year candidates. I could not have
told you, if my life depended on it, what the difference between a four year or a two year
nurse was at the time. I was just preparing for life the way my sisters and brothers had
prepared for life through a college education and really didn't understand the political issues
of three-year, two-year and four-year nurses at the time.
LD: How long did it take for that situation to come around?
LB: I wasn't born yesterday. You learn that very quickly. You're socialized almost overnight
within the first six weeks, that you are somewhat different and it was not subtle that they
thought that you thought you would be taking over, which was very interesting. I do have
sort of a take charge personality. I was born with that. It had nothing to do with where I went
to school, but if there was something to be done, I didn't—you know, I liked being busy and
so I have a high energy level and tend to take on responsibility, which is how I got into
leadership as opposed to a planned progression of career. And so, I can remember the staff
saying, "Well, she won't be here long. She's on her way up." And you know, it was
interesting. And I was somewhat protected by that because I worked nights. And there never
seemed to be a day opportunity at the time. We worked—after I got out of school, we
worked four weekends straight, and I worked a ten-day straight run to get one weekend off
on the fifth weekend. So it's—it was very different when I came out of school how we
worked.
LD: Was there a demand for nurses or—?
LB: There was always a demand for nurses, but at off shifts. And not the shortage that we see
today—perhaps, the shortage we see today; it's just more recognized than it is or was at the
time when I came out of school. There were two nurses on nights, and we did about ninety
deliveries a month at the time, and so perhaps that was enough staff. But as I think back, that
certainly was a lonely existence, when you had five and six patients going at the same time.
And at the time, women didn't have the techniques or the knowledge to assist you with labor.
What we found is that we were trying to educate women as they went through a very
stressful time. And that's not the best time to educate people about how to relax and how to
breath and how to maintain control.
LD: Now where did you learn techniques like that? Did you learn them at UNCG?
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LB: No. Actually, that was another little quirk. After I got out of school, one of the community
doctors, Stuart Abrahams, called me one Christmas—no, it was a New Year's Eve. And he
said, "Okay, Vonnie, now this I—you've been out six months, and you're doing a good job,
and we need some classes here in Greensboro, and so I think you ought to take an instructor's
course and start teaching classes." And I thought, "Well, you know, that sounds sort of fun. I
don't have any children, and I'd like to do that." And so I went away to an instructor's course
to teach Lamaze and went to Winston-Salem to do a preceptorship with Brenda McBride,
who was once a professor at UNCG and has had a career at Cone as well, and began
teaching classes probably by March of that same year. So I graduated in June, and in January
took a teacher's course and started teaching classes, and by the end of that year I was
teaching four classes a week and working eleven to seven, so I was quite busy. And did that
for about three years.
LD: How long did it take to get the hospitals to admit, for instance, men to the delivery room and
that sort of thing? Did they balk at that in the beginning?
LB: Absolutely. Absolutely. The physicians had, for a number—well, forever—taken those
babies out to dads and acted like they really did something in the delivery room. And so, I
can remember that they asked me to come and present the concept at the full staff meeting.
And it was barely passed, but I felt very responsible once the fathers were allowed to go into
the delivery room, that it went very well, because I took the heat in the kitchen when it didn't
go well. And so we—I can't remember actually the time line—but it was by the end of my
first class. The classes were six weeks long, and the first class I prepared the fathers could go
in. And it was on a trial basis. And I had prepared the students that they would— the
physician would receive them well, but that it was something new, and I was not certain that
they would receive well. So I polished them up real good [laughs] and told them to call me
if they needed anything. And I was really set to work day and night at that point to make it
work in the hospital. And change comes hard. And, at first, if anyone screamed out in pain,
they would go, "Ah, ha! It's not working." And within two or three months, with the number
of patients who began to come through with very good experiences and being able to
manage their labor and care for one another as they were in labor, you began to see the
attitude shift to—"Well, you should have had classes and then you wouldn't be in this
shape." [laughs] So, it's very cyclic. And it's all in what you get used to, and certainly,
education for childbirth is very helpful to the nurse because you can talk with people and
move them, and there's an element of trust as you move into the hospital. And particularly if
you know that your nurse is preparing people on the outside to come in. There is continuity
and a feeling that that's a good place to be if nurses care enough to teach. And so it's very
positive.
LD: Do you feel that your preparation at UNCG prepared you well for your nursing career?
LB: Yes, I do. I think that what it prepared me for was change, and since I haven't had a college
education in any other thing, perhaps that's what college education is supposed to do. I was
not indoctrinated into how it is, but I was educated into what it could be. And I found out
what it was. There was a very big difference in what I thought it could be and what I found
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that it was when I graduated. And that's what we call culture shock for folks who get out of
an educational system and go to work in a different socialized system. And that's what a
hospital is. And nursing and medicine has its roots out of the military. And obviously,
UNCG is not military based, and so I had new—I had other thought processes about how
you dealt with problems. I didn't necessarily always go through the line and rank. I can
remember—
LD: The line of command. The chain of command.
LB: Exactly. And I think sometimes—I don't know, because I've never been to a trade school—
and I don't want to be derogatory. Many nurses—I was called down to the director of
nursing's office—for instance, I was talking to somebody about this the other day, and she
had told me that a number of the physicians had complained about my classes and that
perhaps I should not teach them anymore. And I apparently didn't know to be frightened by
that. It had never dawned on me that they would fire me, and I told her that I was under the
opinion that what I did on my hours were mine and that had no effect on the hospital. And I
never heard from her again. I had a doctor who threatened to sue me because somebody had
left his practice based on the fact that the patient was unhappy that she had heard that he used
a lot of forceps in delivery. And if you've ever read the book, The Dance of Anger— I've
thought about it a lot afterwards what people do to you to get you back in line—to get you to
do what they want you to do—is to use a lot of fear tactics. And for some reason they didn't
work with me. Maybe I was too stupid, maybe I didn't—it didn't take, but I just went on and
nothing ever happened, so I just kept pushing on. And whether college prepares you for that,
I don't know. And whether UNCG School of Nursing prepared me for that—I think they did
prepare me for a struggle. And so I never thought it was going to be easy. And that health
care was negotiated, and it was negotiated with the patient, and it was negotiated with the
doctor. And it often was out of your hands. And you just had to do the finest representation
of it that you could do. Patients are not always compliant. They don't do what they're
supposed to do, and physicians don't either and nurses don't either. And so, you just have to
keep working at making it right. And that's probably the thing that I learned best at UNCG is
that I didn't expect it to be perfect.
LD: Did you have any classes with [Dean of School of Nursing] Eloise Lewis? Did she teach at
all, or did she do purely administration?
LB: Absolutely.
LD: What did she teach?
LB: Leadership.
LD: I'd love to hear about that.
LB: Well, she's an imposing person. Not a scary person, but she has the stature of authority, and
she is the type of person that you just want to say, "Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am." [laughs]
"You're absolutely right." And I was pretty much a maverick, and she and I came to terms a
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number of times even in my college career. I can remember back before I entered the nursing
program, she met us in the—everyone who wanted to go into nursing met in the biology lab
at UNCG, and my father had wanted me—if I was going to be in nursing – my father wanted
me to be a lawyer. My mother wanted me to be a nurse. My mother happened to have a little
more clout at the time, and lawyering took seven years and so I raised my hand because
daddy said, "Well, you know, if you're going to be a nurse, be a nurse and that's so you could
make some money." He was on the board of trustees, and so I raised my hand and I said to
Dr. Lewis, "Well, now, how do I become a nurse anesthetist?" To which she just almost
dropped her teeth, and she looked at me, and she said, "If that's why you're entering this
school, don't bother." [laughs] And I thought, "Well, I won't bring that up again." And to
Eloise, at the time, that was a technical field and that nursing was a profession and that she
was going to teach professionals. And that's something that exuded from her from the
moment you met her until the moment you graduated. And she was not going to raise any
technicians here. And what we were going to be were responsible, thinking individuals and
we were going to represent nursing well. And her leadership style was one that she presented
that way. She always knew her material from Florence Nightingale right on through. And
she represented the role of nursing and her—the education in her process through the
educational system was very apparent. She negotiated with administration to bring a
fledgling program from inception to where it is today, which is one of the largest in this area.
And that was not done over a short period of time, so she didn't expect it to be easy either.
LD: That's quite an achievement. Did you ever teach a course at UNCG?
LB: No. I have been back and taught parts of courses with maternal-child. Just the education—
what we teach in the hospital, that sort of thing.
LD: Have you been associated Cone the whole—now this hospital's part of Cone, isn't it?
LB: Yes, yes. Off and on through the years, I have. I started off with Cone, and then I went to
work with a group of obstetricians, gynecologists to do patient education in their offices. I
did that for four years and then went back to school to begin my master's in nursing. And—
LD: Also at UNCG?
LB: Also at UNCG. And I was not in the first class. I didn't want to be in a first class again. I
almost was in that first class, but then I decided, no, I didn't want the first class syndrome
again. And so I think I was about the third class. I can't really remember. But then went back
to Cone as a head nurse on the post-partum unit. And then, went to part time with AHEC and
did some teaching through the AHEC system.
LD: And what is that?
LB: Area Health Education Center and the—North Carolina is divided into a number of divisions
and this is a state funded program to provide continuing education to medical professionals
for health care professionals throughout the state. And our AHEC, the Greensboro AHEC,
serves the Greensboro-Guilford County area, as well as Alamance and Randolph. And I
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think that is the three counties that they serve. So I did continuing education programs for
nurses along with Dianne Leonard, who is now there director. And Becky Knight, who is
also a UNCG graduate.
LD: What were some of the characteristics of a first year program or being the first class in the
nursing school?
LB: They knew everything you did. Everything you did. You just couldn't get away from it. And
we had little meetings, and they tested us. They wanted to make certain we, you know,
presented them well, and we were pre-tested and post-tested and pre-tested again. And one
of my funny little stories I tell about being in school is that I was in school at the time that
they were demonstrating the war in Vietnam. And we were busy doing our public health
nursing and I just hadn't had much time for the war in Vietnam. We were so busy. And all of
my friends who were in education were lying out on the hill, you know, protesting the war in
Vietnam. And I heard that we did not have to take exams if we protested the war in Vietnam.
Now this is the first class. So I rolled in and told them I wasn't going to take—I was
protesting the war in Vietnam and I would not be taking my final exam, to which the dean
called me into her office and assured me that I would. And I assured her I wouldn't because
my friends were not going to take their exams and the chancellor had indicated that they
could not—they would not take off from our grade. So I didn't take my exams, and the dean
was very disappointed in me that I would not take my exams, but I just felt like it was
something I had to do. I had never rebelled in my whole life, and I just didn't think that, you
know, I needed to take those exams if my friends weren't. And she wrote me a little letter
after I graduated and told me how disappointed she was that I hadn't taken the exam. But
we've patched things up over the years.
LD: I was going to say, I think she's gotten over it.
LB: That was hard.
LD: What—how integrated did you feel into the campus? Did you live on campus?
LB: I lived on campus. I have lots of friends. I had—one of my—the nursing students, Priscilla
Helles, lived right next door to me. My roommate was in education—now has a PhD in
education. And I loved it. I lived in Reynolds, and I got married the year before I got out of
school and lived off campus, but very close to campus, and my next door neighbor and I—
she was in fine arts—went to school together a lot. And so I have lots of friends from UNCG
still.
LD: So in the nursing program, you didn't feel separated from the main [unclear]
LB: No, and I would not have enjoyed that. One of the things that I think is very good about a
BSN or a college education is that, that integration. I think it's very, very important. No
profession can stand alone in this day and time. And you need contacts and an understanding
of other thought processes other than the profession. You're just so biased if that occurs.
Now, that's my bias. I think that's the important thing of a college education as opposed to a
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hospital education.
LD: That's interesting, because I had several of the faculty members that I interviewed said very
much the same thing—that they thought that the integration of the nursing program into the
college general program was very important. And it sounds as though they made quite an
effort to maintain their contacts with the rest of the campus and be a functioning part of the
faculty of the campus. Sometimes a school can become a little isolated, but I think the
nursing program is not that way.
LB: I think they've tried very hard not to be.
LD: And I think under the leadership of Eloise Lewis and others, probably. What else do you
remember going on in those years? Those were big years between '66 and '70. Do you
remember anything about a cafeteria strike?
LB: No. I didn't go to the cafeteria much. I don't remember. I remember fear because nothing like
that—you know, we had the marches and the curfews at six o'clock, the racial violence of the
day, and it all goes together now.
LD: What six o'clock curfews? Were they special?
LB: Well, we had—yeah, because of the violence at [North Carolina] A&T [State University].
There had been some racial violence in the area, and I really wish I could remember, you
know, what they were, but that was even before the war in Vietnam. And there were a
number of weeks in which we, you know, would have to be in at six, that all of Greensboro
had a curfew at dark. And it was very—it was a very isolated and scary feeling to have to
come in. You wanted to be in, and yet you didn't want to be in because you didn't want to be
out on the streets. But I think that was a real scary time to live. And I was—I don't think of
Greensboro as a city now because I've been to a lot of other cities, but at the time it was a big
place for a person from Beaufort, North Carolina, where everybody knew your name, to be
in a place that not everyone knew your name and you were one of thousands. And that I did
not understand—I think intellectually, I understood racial prejudice, but emotionally I didn't
understand it. And so I was all the time put out that it interfered with my life—that such
silliness interfered with people's lives and made you frightened. And I feel that way much
today— that we can have such a fundamentalist society or fundamental group that it
infringes on everybody's rights. And that's generally where it comes from.
LD: Were there black women in the nursing program when you were there?
LB: Yes. One from Africa. And, of course, Ernestine Small was black, who was my first
professor. And all I could remember is how beautiful she was. And she, to me, was one of
the stars. She was one of the brightest, or as I saw her, she's brightest and most caring, most
demanding, absolutely demanding of us—would grill us to within an inch of your life. I
mean, you studied that PDR just—you knew those drugs before you went to see her and
every side effect that they had. But you knew that she wanted you there for a reason. And so,
I think she was a role model.
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LD: What kind of supervision did you receive when you were in the hospitals doing your
practical?
LB: There was one professor to four students, I think, at the time. And they—Ernestine had four
of us on the medical-surgical floor, and I'm almost certain that that's the way it was
throughout, even when Margaret Klemmer had students on maternity, we rotated, and I can't
remember whether there was somebody else there with us. But she was always there, and we
had conferences. And although nurses are responsible for patient care when they have a
student, we were—we had debriefing sessions, I called them, after every clinical day to talk
about what had happened and how it could have happened differently and if some of the
attitudes were not professional or some of the things that we saw were not professional, what
we might do about it. We also had a leadership course in which we did the team leading for a
group of patients. And I think probably one of the most difficult transitions that one makes
from nursing school to the environment that we have is going from being able to give very,
very individualized care to a small number of patients to the world of having to try to give
individualized care to a larger number of patients. And probably one of the biggest
frustrations of any nurse, if you were to talk to them today, is that when people are ill and
when they are in an environment that they are not in charge of, they need attention and they
expect to have it immediately. And when you have six to eight patients, somebody is not
getting attention at all during part of that time. And so, nurses often go home frustrated that
they have disappointed somebody at some point during a shift. I know that I did whenever I
worked medical-surgical floor, which is another reason that I was very attracted to maternity
care, because you—the ratio was much smaller. We may have had three patients on the
outside, but oftentimes not more than that. And most of the time, one or two. So you could
touch base with them very frequently.
LD: Were there students who would start the nursing program and them drop out?
LB: I am certain there are students who do that. I can't remember any who dropped out when I
was there. I just don't remember them. I probably—if they did drop out, didn't know them
well enough at the time, because when you entered the nursing curriculum you were from
everywhere on campus, and then entered in. And so if some people dropped out during that
year, I don't think that I knew them well enough to know that they were dropping out. But
that does happen. It almost happened to me.
LD: Did you have to apply specifically for the nursing program to be accepted into that, separate
from your entrance to UNCG?
LB: Right, right. And we were not guaranteed acceptance. And we knew that from the beginning.
So, we were quite proud when we got the letter. [laughs]
LD: Are there any other professors that you had that you could recall?
LB: Well, I recall Margaret Moore and her cigarette hanging out of her mouth and [laughs]—
LD: Unusual nowadays, for a nurse.
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LB: Yes. That's very strange. But I really think I've named the ones that I remember the most. I
remember a Miss [Billie] Boette, whose brother practices here as a pediatrician now. She
was in psych[ology]. And there was another one, but I really can't recall her name. She's
been gone a long while. And she was in the ICU [intensive care unit] with me. The
outstanding ones were Ernestine and Micqui Reed and Margaret and Margaret Klemmer
and the dean, because she did participate in the teaching then.
LD: Are there any other things you'd like to add?
LB: I don't think so.
LD: I've enjoyed the interview.
LB: Thank you.
LD: Thank you very much.
[End of Interview]