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Tuesday August 18, 2015 Edition
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Sharing Memories Of Nursing With Pat Sheldon Smith

Sitting right where she loves it best, Pat Smith and her family get together for fun and to share laughter and make memories.
photo by Photo Provided
Sitting right where she loves it best, Pat Smith and her family get together for fun and to share laughter and make memories.
(l-r) Teresa, Chris, Kurt, Kelly and Kim.
photo by Photo Provided
(l-r) Teresa, Chris, Kurt, Kelly and Kim.
Grandma Mary was the most even-keeled person Pat Sheldon Smith ever knew.
photo by Photo Provided
Grandma Mary was the most even-keeled person Pat Sheldon Smith ever knew.
Seeing her grandchildren, great-grandchildren  makes Pat smile and guess which career path they will take and if it will lead them away from Vermont or to come home as Pat did!
photo by Photo Provided
Seeing her grandchildren, great-grandchildren makes Pat smile and guess which career path they will take and if it will lead them away from Vermont or to come home as Pat did!

Tuesday August 18, 2015

By Cookie Steponaitis

Pat Sheldon Smith was born in Waltham in 1934 during the Great Depression and seven years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and World War Two started. She came of age at a time of great change and turmoil, was raised by her grandparents along with her two sisters and one brother until her father’s return from the war and grew up with no distinction between girl’s and men’s work. “It was simply work,” shared Pat with a grin. “And we just did it. We milked, we hayed, we planted and harvested a huge garden and we canned pickles, jam, farm and we didn’t talk much about it. We just did it.”
    Pat Sheldon like most that came of age in the turmoil of the WWII era and her family were involved in living life but were on the fringes of knowing daily world events. Her grandmother kept the focus on home and school where Pat excelled. “I loved school and especially history and English,” reflected Pat. When asked to share what she dreamed of being when she was growing up, Pat succinctly summed it up. “I was born into a family where you didn’t say, you were told and you went along no questions asked.” Pat as the oldest became the focus of her Aunt Irene who was an RN. As soon as Pat finished her schooling at the one room school Aunt Irene laid out Pat’s future. She attended nursing college in Bennington, Vermont which was paid for by the state of Vermont, earned her LPN and in return she had to work two years in the state. Many young women were placed in training for careers because of the war and embraced the opportunity.
    Given the continuing acceleration in the cost of a college education today, Pat felt and clearly expressed that the opportunity to go to college for free and give back work to pay for it was a model the U.S. should again consider. “Let me be clear though,” Pat remarked. “We were expected to earn top grades and to give 100% to our job and we did. America was at war and we were needed. My Aunt Irene told me I would always have a solid career and she was right but what I didn’t expect was how much I would love it.”
    While working at New London Hospital in New London, NH, Pat’s life took another turn when childhood friend Harvey Smith appeared in the picture. Harvey was also raised by his grandparents and had been around Pat’s farm many times over the years and the pair was friends. “It just sort of changed,” shared Pat, “and we went from there.” Married sixty-one years to date, the couple had four daughters, Teresa, Chris, Kelly, Kim and son Kurt.  And added to that list now is an impressive ten grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren. “I guess it’s fair to say that they went forth and multiplied,” quipped Pat. “I always thought a huge family was the way to go.”
    The couple lived in Springfield where Harvey worked as a machinist and over the years Pat Sheldon Smith worked the 11-7 shift while raising a family. Pat embraced her nursing career and loved her job and most importantly the people. “You always need to remember to talk to the patients,” explained Nurse Smith. “You need to understand where they are at in their lives and that they are in a phase where they are scared, unsure and want to have people value them and not just see them as a condition or a person with a disease. The 11-7 shift was perfect for me and I really always focused on finding time to talk and to laugh with patients.” While Pat is now the patient herself she does watch and at time offer her opinion on how to maximize the comforts of the patient.
    While Pat Smith credits the change in technology as one of the greatest shifts in nursing during her life, what pleases her most is the attention now focused on abused children. Often never spoken of and swept under the carpet, Smith credits people today for not only treating the children but seeking legal action against those who perpetrate the abuse. She was never able to keep quiet about what she saw and often found herself censored because she spoke up about seeing children whose injuries were not from the causes stated by the family.
While Pat can still hear Grandma Mary’s voice telling her to work hard and eat everything on her plate and Aunt Irene’s edict that you will be a nurse, Pat Smith smiles when she examines the circumstances in her life she values the most, her marriage, family and career. “I have had the opportunity to work in hospitals in Lebanon and at the NW Woodlawn Nursing Home,” concluded Pat Smith, “and I will openly say that the quality of the hospital is linked to the quality of the doctors and the nurses. The nurses are the backbone of the medical profession.” As for talking to people Pat Smith still loves that and seeks every opportunity to engage and laugh.  Pat prefers to snooze more in the daytime hours and spends a lot of the nighttime at the residential facility where she lives chatting with the next generation who are working 11-7 and for most like Pat, loving every minute of it.


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