Ann Graduates From Mount Mercy

In 1981 Ann graduated from Mount Mercy College with a BSN in Nursing and a BA in Psychology.  The head of the psychology department urged her to purse a PhD at the University of Iowa, and she did take a couple of graduate courses at the university, but when she discovered that she would need nearly 30 hours of statistics, so she said, “No, thank you.” 

It took awhile for graduation to soak in.  During her college years I had typed many of her papers.  She did all the work, and wrote the first drafts.  I would type them up, rearrange sentence structure, and prepare them to present to the professors.  Sometimes I would be up until early morning hours getting a paper together. These were in pre-computer days, so they had to be done on a typewriter.  We went through a lot of erasable bond.  It’s almost as if I got an education along with her.   It took awhile for it to sink in that I wouldn’t be sitting up late at nights typing papers for her.  We began to develop a normal sleep schedule.

Well, that’s not totally correct.  We had children, and we were going through adolescent years.  One of the great material blessings we’ve acquired in life is a king sized bed.  A ritual started with Elliott that went through all four children.  Elliott would come into our room late at night.  He would pile into the bed between us – all 6 feet and 4 inches of him, and talk to us about things going on in his life.   That continued until all the children were grown.  They had an opportunity to talk about their joys, their problems, and their activities.  I think Gary was the hardest to listen to.  When we went to a movie, he would want to review the movie with us.  He seemed to remember all the dialogue, and he loved to mimic the sound effects.   That was a real sleep robber. 

After graduation Ann was hired to work in surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids, but she had to pass state boards.  We were somewhat concerned because she had a test taking phobia that had plagued her throughout her college studies.   She set about making preparations for state boards by studying with former classmates from Mount Mercy.  When they went to Des Moines for the state boards, the four of them shared a motel room and spent the night before getting ready for the test.  As things turned out, she was asked many of the questions she had just studied.  She breezed through the state boards, and officially became a Registered Nurse, the fulfillment of a long term goal.