My mother attended the school and graduated with the class of 1955. Her father's sister, Maude Egli Swartzendruber, was for a time, the director at the school and wrote about the school in her book, "The Lamp in the West." Aunt Maude influenced a lot of young women, including Mom, to go into nursing.
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| Phyllis Egli & Maude Egli Swartzendruber |
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| Phyllis Egli & her mother, Edna Peterson Egli |
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| Brochure (my aunt Glenna Schrock Egli is on the right) |
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Mom and Dad met while they were both attending Hesston College in Hesston, Kansas. After Hesston, Mom went to LaJunta for training and Dad went into alternative service (1W) with the selective service. He tried to get assigned to LaJunta; several young Mennonite guys were assigned there, including Mom's brother, Tom Egli, but Dad was assigned to Pueblo, Colorado. The next three years they dated long distance and wrote almost daily letters. Nursing students were not allowed to be married.
I don't know if all the nursing classes were as close as Mom's but I don't think any group could have been closer. They kept in touch through a 'circle letter' that came as a large packet of letters that Mom loved to read. Then she would take out her old letter, write a new one and send it off again. Every few years the group would get together for a reunion. We learned to know many of her classmates and their families over the years.
Swartzendruber, Maude. The Lamp in the West. Newton, Kansas: La Junta Mennonite School of Nursing Alumnae Association, 1975.
My mother Zola Smith Esau graduated from the Bethel Deaconess nursing program in Newton, Kansas. As a child we went to annual nursing class reunions. Lots of kids. Mom still updates me about her classmates and their families.
ReplyDeleteMy mother graduated from the La Junta Mennonite School of Nursing. She must have been one of the last classes as she married in 1959 and had just graduated. Her name was Delores Dietzel, now Gouge. She was the first person to take nursing classes at the same time as she did her alternative service. She said she did it, but she wouldn't recommend doing both at the same time for anyone else because you had no outside life. I am interested in hearing more from Maude Swartzendruber or her family. I was born in Newton KS at the Bethel Deaconess Hospital and one of my mother's cousins is a Swartzendruber that lives in Pigeon, MI. Debra Louden
ReplyDeleteSorry it has taken me a year to respond!!:)
DeleteMaude was my mom's aunt - her dad's sister. She married John Swartzendruber in Manson, Iowa. John died the next year of acute appendicitis. You can see more at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Egli-133