Mom's Story -- College Years 3 and 4

In 1938 and 39, my third year at the University, I settled down to serious study.  I had many, too many to mention, singing experiences.  In the operetta, “The Rose Maiden,” and the vesper service “Seven Last Words of Christ,” I took the lead parts.  There were boys, but I was becoming more sophisticated and choosy. 

            In 1940 I graduated on May 29, with 468 graduates, amid all the excitement, parties, and gifts that go with college graduation.  I had been accepted in the LDS Hospital Dietetics School in Salt Lake City for their March class.  This gave me a little time to rest from school and get my feet on the ground again.  Mayola was urging me to come and stay with her in New Orleans before going into my dietetics school, so I felt that was as good as anything I could do in the meantime. 

            So it was off to New Orleans for awhile.  It was such an exciting time for me as Red’s family were very prominent, they knew the right places to go and the right people.  Mayola was very staunch in the Church, so even though it was then a struggling little Branch meeting above a filthy old pool hall, we were active.  Everyone held more than one job in the Church.  Mayola was the Relief Society President and I served in the MIA.  I secured a wonderful job at Charity Hospital, a big one-thousand-bed hospital located in the center of the city.  I was in charge of the kitchens at the Nursing Home.  It was a good job and opened a new vista of employment preparatory to my hospital training which came later. 

Charity Hospital - New Orleans

While working at Charity, I purchased my sterling silver at a cost of  $143.00 for a service for twelve in everything.  Today one knife in my sterling pattern costs $67.00.  I’ve been so proud of this, and it will be handed down to my daughters when I am gone.

            I met some exciting young men at this time, and one was special, Bill Whitehouse, a brilliant young medical student from Texas.  He was a member of the Church, but extremely busy with his studies.  Later, when I came back to New Orleans after my Dietetics Training, he was interning at Touro Infirmary, where I worked.  We were very good friends, and still are, but romance was for someone else as far as I was concerned.