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Old glass thermometers, gigantic glass syringes, apothecary bottles of blue and brown glass that once held elixirs of healing — these are some of the artifacts of a “Century of Service” being celebrated at the Mayborn Museum at Baylor University.

Baylor’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing, one of the oldest nurse training programs in the state, is marking its centennial this year. As part of the celebration, the Mayborn Museum opened an exhibit that will run through April 18 in the History of Baylor University Exhibit Hall.

Marie and John Houser Chiles, members of the nursing school’s Dean’s Board, made the major donation to establish the exhibit hall, which includes a permanent display of a timeline of major events in the university’s history.

Visitors can see many vintage and even contemporary nursing uniforms, on loan from alumni: the blue-and-white striped dresses and starched aprons of 1910, the woolen, white caps with the prestigious black stripe of the 1920s through 1960s, as well as the military garb of the 1940s and 1990s, for example.

One case contains an insulin kit, the “state-of-the-art” technology of the 1920s that at long last gave diabetic patients a way to hold their disease at bay. Other cases include photos that reflect the lives of the nursing students’ off-hours – such as the picture of students gathered around the piano to sing in their dormitory or looking wistfully out the window with homesickness.

The school’s contributions to the military are a special focus of the “Century of Service” exhibit.

During World War II, two Baylor graduates — Earlyn Black Harding (1918-2007) of Kerrville and Hattie Brantley (1916-2006) — were held as prisoners of war for almost three years after the fall of Corregidor to the Japanese in World War II. The “Angels of Bataan,” as these military nurses were known, cared for soldiers and other POWs held in the Philippines. Mannequins dressed in the women’s actual uniforms are among the artifacts used to honor the two survivors of the war’s horrors.

The Louise Herrington School of Nursing, formerly known as the Baylor University School of Nursing, was established in Dallas in October 1909 by Mildred Bridges, superintendent of nursing.

Known at the time as the Nurses’ Training School of the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium, it was chartered by the Baptist General Convention of Texas to replace Good Samaritan Hospital as the clinical facility for the Baylor University College of Medicine.

The BGCT in 1921 consolidated the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium and the professional schools (medical, dental, pharmacy and nursing). The hospital was dubbed Baylor Hospital, and the nursing school was christened the Baylor Hospital School of Nursing. In 1936, the names were altered to Baylor University Hospital and Baylor University School of Nursing. These combined institutions were then dubbed “Baylor-in-Dallas.” The School of Nursing continued to operate as a hospital-controlled nurses’ training school.

In 1949, the School of Nursing was placed directly under the control and supervision of Baylor University officials in Waco. The school’s headquarters moved to Waco, and students in both diploma and degree courses studied their first year in Waco. After two years of clinical work in Dallas, those students desiring a degree returned to Waco for an additional year of cracking the books.

A graduate program focusing on patient-care management was initiated in 1990. In 2000, the school’s name was changed to the Louise Herrington School of Nursing in honor of a major donor.

The Louise Herrington School of Nursing is located in Dallas on the campus of Baylor Medical Center. Students need 131 credits to obtain a degree, and must earn 66 hours from the Waco campus or another institution before completing their final two years at the Dallas campus. More than 4,000 students have graduated, and currently there are more than 300 students enrolled in the program.

Sources: Handbook of Texas Online, Mayborn Museum at Baylor University, WorkingNurse.com

tjryan@wacotrib.com

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