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"December 7, 1941 was going to be just another work day for a poor hard working nursing student –me. Or so I thought. I was up at the usual time, pulled on my white cotton (yes, I said cotton) stockings and put on my comfortable but very ugly white duty shoes. (We were now allowed to wear white shoes and stockings). Then I put on my blue and white striped uniform. Actually the uniform was not too bad except it seemed so very long. And it was. The bottom of the hem had to be 12 inches from the floor. It most certainly did not show off our young good looking legs. Then over the uniform went the starched white bib and apron. And of course the very heavily starched collar and cuffs had been pinned in place. The cuffs would still rub our upper arms and even leave marks on the skin but the stiff collar was THE worst. It left marks on our necks so badly that the marks were still present months after we had graduated. Then my prized cap was put on. I was really proud of it especially since I had a black velvet band on it. That meant I was a senior nurse. That was status. Why, in less than a year I would graduate, then on to take state board exams and then I would be a registered nurse (if I passed the exam). I would be so very happy. Then I threw my black and gold nurse’s cape around my shoulders and I headed out for the hospital just ½ block from the nurses home.
I would have breakfast and head up to the floor to go to work. Yes, indeed it was work but it was work that I loved. I loved the patients, I loved my status as a Senior and I loved the responsibility of my job—passing medicines.
As I remember, everything went OK that day. I had no big problems. As I said, I was medicine nurse that day. I had a little brown bakelite tray about 6 by 10 inches on which I carried the medicines to the patients. Liquid medicines were poured in little one ounce glass medicine glasses. Tablets were put on a little metal tray that fit right on top of the medicine glass. In that way you could give both liquids and pills to the same patient without taking up much space on such a little tray. Medicine identification cards would be pushed down in a slot at the back of the little metal pill tray. The cards were different colors depending on what time of day the medicine was to be given. I can remember only the white card which meant the medicine was to be given at bedtime (HS) or when ever necessary (PRN). It was an efficient method.
At any rate I was doing well in getting my meds out and per usual I was anxious to get at my charting before it was time to pour my next round of meds. Charting always seemed to take up so much time but it had to be done—just a necessary evil.
Room 315 was a two patient room about mid way down the hall. The medicine I had with me was for the lady in bed 1, the bed just inside the door. I turned into the room and stepped up to the left side of the bed. It was so long, long ago and I have forgotten the name of the patient but I surely remember how the room looked. It was dark and dreary and a little cluttered but heck, that describes most all the rooms on the floor.
Anyway, the patient was a nice lady and was not critically ill but at this time she just lay there, looking off into space, not even reaching for her medicine. She just had to tell me about the news she had just heard on her little brown bakelite radio.
I have mentioned bakelite before—I guess it was plastic or a fore runner of plastic. Our meal trays were made of it as were such items as the patient’s radio. Jewelry was also made of the stuff and I have noticed in the recent magazines that the jewelry is again more or less in fashion and the old stuff is sought after and brings a nice price when you can find it. I wish I had some of it now.
Well, the little lady said she had just heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed by the Japanese and President Roosevelt said that we were now at war.
Pearl Harbor. Ships. Bombs. Japanese. War!
I must admit that up to that minute I had never been too interested in any thing other than my training days and getting a job after I got out of school. Oh sure, I knew we had some soldiers stationed at the edge of town—I would often see them up town, out and around. I knew too, that planes flew in and out of Baer Field southwest of town, but so what? And I knew there was fighting in Europe but frankly, all that meant nothing to me. Heck, I was in nurses training; I read text books and very little of the newspapers. Of course television had not yet been invented and while we did have radios, I confess I had never been very interested in the news programs.
So where in the world was Pearl Harbor? And why would the Japanese bomb it and kill us Americans?
The patient told me Pearl Harbor was in the Hawaiian Islands. Well, I did know those islands were way out in the Pacific Ocean somewhere. And I knew they had volcanos on the islands as I even had a piece of lava from one of them. In fact I still have it. I also thought Japan was more far away across the ocean and why would it want to blow up one of the Hawaiian Islands? Why? Why?
The patient said she did not know why, but the Harbor had indeed been bombed and hundreds had been killed. You know, I clearly remember saying to her, “why, they wouldn’t dare!” But of course the Japanese dared, they had already done so.
Well, the lady finally took her medicine and I went out again on my appointed rounds for the rest of the day. Of course never once did I think that a mere 16 months later I would have become a registered nurse, would have worked on general duty at the Wabash County Hospital for 3 months, then 3 months as assistant night supervisor at my old home hospital, the Methodist in Ft. Wayne.
At the end of those 6 months, I actually volunteered to serve in the military nurse corps. I was sworn in as a 2nd. Lt. at that very same Baer Field outside of Ft. Wayne. I had become a member of the Army Air Corps. And even then I never once thought that in 1945 I would be stationed and living at a military base (Hickam Field) which was just a stone’s throw from Pearl Harbor, the place the Japanese had bombed on 7 Dec. 1941—the place I had never even heard of until that patient in bed 1 on third floor in the old Methodist Hospital told me it had been bombed."
---Betty Jane Keim of Ft. Wayne, Indiana would go on to be an Air Evacuation Nurse in the Pacific Theater.
Notation-Attention: Some of the text documents/pages on this website are copies/scans presented in pdf format; others have been transcribed from official unit military documents without corrections. Some material was difficult to read and transcribe, sometimes this is noted in the transcription. Some originals may have been missing sections or pages. Spelling was not corrected. Documents are not meant to be a complete record, they are only what has been reasonbly-readable. In some cases document formatting-layout may have been altered to enable better viewing on a web page with multiple devices. Additional studies, essays, opinions are written by the Museum Team of historians.
