It is, however, Nurses’ Week, and I want to pay tribute to the many fantastic people who have influenced my life, to their abilities and character, and maybe even a nod to my life as a nurse. I would probably broaden that to health professionals, though admittedly we are a mixed bunch, not completely all we hoped we could be. In general, though, I think Nurses are pretty amazing.

My earliest nurse role models were Alice Anne Pearce and Cherie Lauber, an early mentor and my youth pastor’s wife. Both were working as nurses, helping pay the family bills. They both had two kids, and I babysat for them. Both have gone on to earn advanced degrees – Alice Anne in administration, and Cherie in teaching.

LIke many girls my age, I read and re-read the Candy Stripers series, and Clara Barton biographies, but what I really wanted to do was to be a teacher. I initially thought of Christian Education degree at Taylor, but my father wanted me to have a better paying career preparation and teaching was glutted at the time. I thought I was quite liberated, but surprisingly teaching and nursing appeared to be my only two options! (Cherie and Alice Anne encouraged me to go to West Suburban School Nursing in Oak Park. I was the first person to put “Ms. C.J. Marshall, Student Nurse” on my name tag and went off with a bit of a chip on my shoulder, having done the fun of two years of college already. I was more interested in dating, anyways and Emmaus and Moody Bible offered some fine distractions.

Ultimately West Sub was a good choice, a small band of practically trained nurses that have stuck together for nearly 50 years, caring, sharing and praying together. It took me five years to finish a three- year diploma at the total cost of about $18K. My dad thought he got a great deal in the end and I became a nurse with adequate skills to enjoy a lifetime of being a nurse. So happy Nurses’ Week to me.

[Editor’s Note: at this point, Chris entered the hospital and became too weak to finish typing. The rest of this post is a dictation summary by her daughter, Laura.]

My next special Nurse friend developed when I suite-mated with Mari Leuthold during my junior and senior years at West Sub. Our friendship was mostly long distance after nursing school (Mari went to Quito, Ecuador with HCJB, working in a rural clinic in the Shell area.) In nursing school, we weren’t boy crazy but interested in the dating scene. I got married before Mari and she sent me a tellagram, “Congratulations. Even you flake at times.”

When she returned from Quito, John and I were married and on our way to Alaska. I was her only bridesmaid. They headed out to Africa a few days after the wedding. Our letters crossed in the mail conveying news of our firstborns. Later when we were all back in the lower 48 states, Mari got more education (BSN and MSN) because she loved teaching nursing. In 2013, when I called to tell her the news of my first cancer, she reported that she was scheduled for a biopsy. Her breast cancer varied from mine, but we went bald together.

Mari also shares a love for quilting with me. After I started working at a quilt shop, she was intrigued by the idea, but has not (yet) found one. Mari and I share a sense of humor and also similar woes in life. We realized later in life that we were both only daughters in our family, so we felt that we had experienced the gift of sisterhood in each other.

In our class of 43 nurses in a very unique nursing experience (if you know what a Diploma nurse is, you might understand). It was a very diverse group…. For some reason we have managed to stay together as friends (thru reunions, prayer support, traveling quilt for an ailing member) all these years. In 2017 while home shopping, I messaged another classmate, Cheryl Fornelli, that we were looking at a house in her neighborhood (although I didn’t know precisely where she lived) and she sent back a photo showing how our two homes were only two blocks away! In the 8 years since we moved here, we have built a fun friendship of sharing about our families, relating over nursing topics and a love for genealogy.

Cheryl has also lived an adventure-filled life alongside her husband. As an evangelist, her husband John speaks Spanish, can talk to anyone and can strike up a conversation with any one. Cheryl’s adventures continued, as she worked for a time as a flight attendant. We also overlapped early on through Woodside Bible Chapel and Moody connections.

Cheryl and I have now had a shared experience of serious cancer diagnoses. She has been a soothing friend, often checking in. Our shared nursing backgrounds further enabled us to support each other through the ups and downs of cancer.

Although I haven’t been able to coax any of my daughters into the nursing profession, I find it interesting that “nursing” is used both in the medical/health as in for a mother who nurtures little ones. I want to say Happy Nurses Week to all these nurturing women in my life.

Part 3 coming soon (which, we now know definitively, will be written fully by my daughter) about my run in with many nurses this past week…