{"id":47380,"date":"2017-09-15T09:30:16","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T09:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/?p=47380"},"modified":"2017-09-13T21:14:04","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T21:14:04","slug":"47380","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/2017\/09\/15\/47380\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sisterhood: Strong, Adventurous and Daring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sisterhood had long been the goal of Kathryn Kingsbury, who grew up in rural North Dakota with two brothers. \u201cI wanted sisters so bad! I kept praying to God, but that doesn\u2019t always work,\u201d she says. Or does it? What she got instead of siblings may well reveal the mysterious power of prayer.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Fairview Nurses Class of ’69.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kingsbury used to sit with a dictionary in that North Dakota kitchen, studying every word of the \u201cTell Me Doctor\u201d feature in her mother\u2019s Ladies Home Journal<\/em>. Fascinated by all things medical, she first pursued medical technology but eventually found herself in nursing school at Fairview Hospital, one of 33 women in the class of \u201969. Today she is among the many donors who contribute to Augsburg nursing scholarships through the Fairview Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association, of which she is the treasurer, database keeper, and indefatigable fan even as health care education evolves dramatically.<\/p>\n

The Fairview nursing school, which began in 1916 and ended in 1976, trained nurses in three years. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t beat a three-year grad. We could function at 100% on day one of our hire,\u201d Kingsbury says. The student nurses attended psychology, chemistry, and biology classes on the Augsburg campus and lived together in a dorm since replaced by Fairview\u2019s corporate offices. It was rumored that their proximity to the Augsburg boys\u2019 dorm across the street created some jealousy among Auggie girls, but what Kingsbury remembers most is the indelible bond linking the future nurses.<\/p>\n

\u201cMrs. Torland, our housemother from Norway, was strict and firm but loving. She was a mother hen who scrutinized our dates and invited us to her house for Norwegian coffee,\u201d Kingsbury says. It was a time of penny loafers and skirts at all times on campus, and, on the hospital floor, glass intravenous bottles that required nurses to count each drip (10 or 12 drops a minute, depending on the IV fluid brand).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not quite the same, is it?\u201d the Fairview alumni say when they gather for their annual luncheon, Kingsbury reports. About 1,000 nurses from 38 states and 5 countries populate her database; about 100 attend the luncheon, which, this year, included a table of graduates from 65 years ago. \u201cOh, they\u2019re funny \u2013 so strong, adventuresome, and daring,\u201d says Kingsbury. \u201cLater grads, who did not live in the dorm, don\u2019t have the sense of unity that we did. We were tight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sisterhood reigned, but change was inevitable. By the \u201870s, a four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) became the gold standard, but out of reach for many. In 1996, the Fairview alumni created an Augsburg nursing scholarship fund with proceeds from the estate of Clarice J. (Vaardahl) Laushkin, Fairview class of \u201835. Ann Good, Fairview class of \u201970 and wife of former Augsburg board member Mike Good \u201971, still works three days a week at a chiropractic clinic in Alexandria and has made several donations to the fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a very close community,\u201d she says of her fellow students. After a decade of work at Fairview, she wanted to go back to school for her BSN but was unable to do so. \u201cScholarships are so important. I want returning nurses to have the opportunity I didn\u2019t have at the time, to be able to go back and get their degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Some of the Fairview Nurses Class of ’69 today.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While she recognizes that the Fairview Nurses Alumni Association will eventually die out and is currently archiving its artifacts with the Minnesota Historical Society, Kingsbury is happy that the scholarship program is endowed in perpetuity, though of course new gifts are encouraged. For her, it has been a worthy journey. \u201cI got my sisters\u2014wonderful sisters,\u201d she says. \u201cWe were there for each other in good times, in bad times, and in between.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sisterhood had long been the goal of Kathryn Kingsbury, who grew up in rural North Dakota with two brothers. \u201cI wanted sisters so bad! I kept praying to God, but that doesn\u2019t always work,\u201d she says. Or does it? What she got instead of siblings may well reveal the mysterious power of prayer.   Kingsbury …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,6,3],"tags":[138,136,58,137],"class_list":["post-47380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donor-recognition","category-gift-announcements","category-giving","category-giving-to-augsburg","tag-fairview","tag-gift","tag-gift-announcement","tag-nurses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47380"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47395,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47380\/revisions\/47395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}