METHODIST MEDICAL CENTER ORAL HISTORY:
LOIS MALLETT
Interviewed by William (Bill) J. Wilcox, Jr.
July 23, 2008
MR. WILCOX: One thing we need to do at the outset is to get your agreement (ed. - a release) to let us have this interview and possibly use some of it in a hospital book.
MRS. MALLETT: That’s fine as long as I can be of value.
MR. WILCOX: Would you just sign there? Today is July 23, the day after your 90th birthday so we say Happy Birthday.
MRS. MALLETT: Thank you.
MR. WILCOX: First, I would like ask how you came to OR in 1944? Your name then, you told me, was Virginia L. Jones.
MRS. MALLETT: First of all, I grew up in Bienville, Louisiana, in Bienville Parish, and I went to nursing school after high school graduation at Bienville. I went to El Dorado, Arkansas, the name of the school was Warner Brown, I was there for I believe it was 3 years, if I remember correctly, and I graduated as a RN. I decided that before I wanted to start to work I wanted to take a vacation, so I choose going to Tennessee to visit my sister and her husband -- Manford Bays and his wife Alma. He was from Harlan, Kentucky, grew up there, and was living in Oak Ridge at the time. I came to visit them and I liked what I saw here, so I went to the nursing office to ask about work.
MR. WILCOX: You mean at the Army hospital? (ed. - showing her the aerial photo #1 attached )
MRS. MALLETT: Yes, the old original Army hospital. Everything was Army except the nursing staff. All the doctors were Army, I’m sure. So I walked in and asked her what the possibility of finding work, what was available? She just said, “When would you like to start to work?” That kind of surprised me, not asking my experience or training. I decided perhaps Emergency Room would be a good place to start and that’s where I went, and I ended up working there for 5 years. Chris Nance, who I came to know, originally lived in Virginia, but she had been in the Army somewhere and she came home from the Army and then came here to work in the Hospital, and it was she who opened up a Surgery Recovery Room here at the hospital and that’s where I went to work, moving from the Emergency Room to Recovery and that’s where I finished my nursing career.
MR. WILCOX: Do you remember the name of the head nurse or doctor?
MRS. MALLETT: Isabel Webber. I guess they needed help badly, so they didn’t ask if you were available or what kind of person you were.
MR. WILCOX: So this was your first nursing job?
MRS. MALLETT: Yes.
MR. WILCOX: How old where you then, must have been pretty young?
MRS. MALLETT: Yes, I was 21.
MR. WILCOX: What was working in the Emergency Room like in 1944?
MRS. MALLETT: I was the best place I ever worked, I guess. Really. the Hospital was all Army, everything was Army, and they needed help here, and money didn’t seem to be a problem.
MR. WILCOX: Did they have a lot of nurses in the ER?
MRS. MALLETT: No, that person right there, (ed.- looking at the 1945 Westcott photo of part of the nursing staff attached as #2) I can’t remember her name, but number six was the ER head nurse, and I went to work with her. Doctor Darling, I believe was his name, was in the Army and he left here to go home to California; she had been his nurse in his office at one time, and she went out there to California and she was going to take care of their children for a while and was a nurse after that.
MR. WILCOX: Did the doctors wear lab coats over their uniforms?
MRS. MALLETT: No, not that I recall.
MR. WILCOX: (ed. note. While editing this transcription of her interview, Lois and I talked about an interesting ER incident that we did not cover in the interview – but one worth recording.)
MRS. MALLETT: One day a patient came to the ER from Y-12 Plant and started spouting all kinds of technical stuff that we quickly guessed he should not be talking about. We nurses did not know any of the Y-12, X-10, or K-25 secrets, but were well aware the whole project was secret war work and we were not supposed to talk about it. He went on and on and was pretty upset. We reported him right away, and it was not to long before a house trailer was pulled up near the ER door and he was given a bed in the trailer with a nurse and orderly watching him. After some time we heard he was moved to an E-1, E-2 apartment house not far from the Hospital. Bill afterward checked Lois’s story with Wm. T. Sergeant who during this period was in charge of the CEW police and guards, and Sergeant confirmed that there were a case or two like that and that they did have an E-1-E-2 Apartment house residence for folks who needed special attention .
MR. WILCOX: Where did you live?
MRS. MALLETT: Covington Hall, that was the nurses dormitory directly in front of the old hospital.
MR. WILCOX: I have a picture here of the Army hospital, (Photo #1)?
MRS. MALLETT: Here is Covington Hall. This was the Emergency Room right here.
MR. WILCOX: So I have that labeled right?
MRS. MALLETT: Yes. That was the front entrance there and all of that was offices across there.
MR. WILCOX: Where was ER?
MRS. MALLETT: Right here. From here to here, on both sides of the hall. that room there
MR. WILCOX: Let’s label that ER.
MRS. MALLETT: And that’s where Sam Martin was the Hospital’s first ambulance driver.
MR. WILCOX: Tell me about Sam Martin?
MRS. MALLETT: Sam Martin was from Clinton or Lake City. He was an ambulance driver, the original ambulance driver for the hospital. Adkins, I don’t remember his first name, was his assistant. One day when Sam had backed his ambulance in there to unload his patient, he forgot to put his brake on and that ambulance took off down this hill towards Tennessee Avenue, he ran after it, barely caught it about half way down it and stopped it before it got to Tennessee Avenue!
MR. WILCOX: The entrance to the ER was up on the rise so he had a pretty good hill to roll down, and is this the road here ?
MRS. MALLETT: Yes, that’s the road that goes down to Tennessee Avenue right along there.
MR. WILCOX: Well this ER then was not very big?
MRS. MALLETT: No, not more than three rooms.
MR. WILCOX: Did you have a lot of cases?
MRS. MALLETT: Oh yes.
MR. WILCOX: What kind?
MRS. MALLETT: Everything you could think of, there was no question about who was treated, anyone who came in -- sick people, babies, children, elderly all patients --it didn’t matter. They (Oak Ridgers) could come to the Emergency Room even though it was not an emergency and they did. Day and night.
MR. WILCOX: When you came, were there still some of the soldiers here from the Jellico Train Wreck or were they all discharged by then?
MRS. MALLETT: Yes, they were there, I saw some of them. The halls were lined with them or course we didn’t have enough beds for all our…all the halls were lined with cots of some sort and they were on those cots.
MR. WILCOX: There were 70 or 80 of them, I think brought in from the train.
MRS. MALLETT: I don’t remember but I have that book. You might be interested in reading that book. I have one of them.
MR. WILCOX: That was the biggest emergency we ever had here at the hospital.
MRS. MALLETT: Yes, that was a big one.
MR. WILCOX: That was July 1944, I believe it was either the 15 or 16th of July.
MRS. MALLETT: I think so.
MR. WILCOX: Can you remember anything about the Hospital Director, Dr. Charles Rhea -- whose picture you pointed out right there? (ed. – Number 2 in Nurses photo, the third row).
MRS. MALLETT: Yes, I talked to him many times but don’t recall any specifics, it was just everyday conversation. Nothing special.
MR. WILCOX: Was he seen around the hospital?
MRS. MALLETT: Oh, yes he was all around. He was just another person around, he didn’t pretend to be a big boss he was just there.
MR. WILCOX: Do you recall Dr. Stafford Warren, Charles’s boss? (ed.- Number 5 in third row)
MRS. MALLETT: Yes.
MR. WILCOX: He was Medical Officer for the Manhattan Project.
MRS. MALLETT: Yes.
MR. WILCOX: Do you remember seeing him around?
MRS. MALLETT: Oh, yes, talked with him lots of times, he was just another guy around too.
MR. WILCOX: There was one doctor here in 1944 that was still a civilian, a psychiatrist; do you remember a Dr. Eric Clark?
MRS. MALLETT: Oh, Dr. Clark, yes. I never had to see him, thank you. But I talked with him; he was just another guy also. Back in those days you felt almost equal with everybody else.
MR. WILCOX: Is that so?
MRS. MALLETT: We were all here for the same purpose. I recall one time I was working in the ER and they needed extra help in the operating room which was just around the corner. Now ER was right here and the operating room was on this side right in the hall there and they needed extra help, they come running to the Emergency Room “come and help us, we got in a tight spot around here” I went around there and scrubbed up and I didn’t know what I was doing but I did it. I helped out for a while in the operating room.
MR. WILCOX: Where was surgery?
MRS. MALLETT: This part.
MR. WILCOX: Here? (Pointing to another wing, see photo)
MRS. MALLETT: Wait a minute, where was the dining room?
MR. WILCOX: I don’t have any idea
MRS. MALLETT: This was the old C-wing here and that would be the operating room area there and I was right around the corner here, so this was the operating area here. This is Covington Hall where I lived. (Pointed out on photo).
MR. WILCOX: With about 75 other nurses?
MRS. MALLETT: My room was upstairs in this very upper back corner --- the doors were never locked day or night. One night I was sitting in my room and looked up and there was a man standing out in the hall there, he had come up the back stairs and was drunk and he didn’t know where he was and didn’t care.
MR. WILCOX: I guess he must have lived in a dormitory?
MRS. MALLETT: Oh yes there were dormitories all around, so many of them you couldn’t count them. He got in the wrong one.
MR. WILCOX: Did you chase him off?
MRS. MALLETT: Yea. They begin to holler “Man in the Hall, get him out!” All the dormitories had a not a housekeeper, but a director of some sort to keep the front desk.
MR. WILCOX: Like a house mother.
MRS. MALLETT: Yes, she came up and got him and escorted him out of Covington Hall, and the police were called to take him away.
MR. WILCOX: This is another picture I brought to show you today. Here’s the road down to Tennessee, so ER would have been right there.
MRS. MALLETT: Where’s Vance Road? There it is…ok this is the side of the building that a deer came to visit one time at the hospital, he got lost I guess and walked up the road and got to the old wing, (must be this new part right here) and he got frightened and ran through a glass window wall, and he ran around in all that place breaking glass as he went.
MR. WILCOX: Scared the people probably?
MRS. MALLETT: Yes.
MR. WILCOX: How did you meet your husband, Al Mallett?
MRS. MALLETT: Well we had a recreation room (ed.-Ridge Recreation Hall) in Jackson Square and that’s where all the young folks hung out at night. There was no alcohol sold there, just cokes and one of those machines that you play records with. Young folks met there. I had been trying to dance, I wasn’t a good dancer but I tried with someone. I got tired and went to this bar stool and sat down and the first thing I knew he was tapping me on my shoulder “come dance with me”. And that night he bet me a bar of candy - the big bars of Hershey’s that were unheard of in those days. He bet me one of those that I could not remember his name the next day. That was a come-on because I caught on to that right fast, but he bet me one if I could remember his name the next day. Well I did remember his name.
MR. WILCOX: Did he come through with the bar?
MRS. MALLETT: Yea, I don’t know where he got it, I never did find out. But he got me that bar of candy.
MR. WILCOX: The hospital changed quite a bit during the 1950’s, you know, then they had the hospital election and the Methodist Church took over the Oak Ridge Hospital. Were you working then or did you quit to have your family then?
MRS. MALLETT: Well let’s see, I worked for quite a long while but I can’t remember, I am getting forgetful again.
MR. WILCOX: Don’t worry.
MRS. MALLETT: I think I worked five years or six years before we started a family and I didn’t work anymore until the oldest son (we had two sons) was in junior high and the younger one was going to start junior.
MR. WILCOX: About when would that have been? 1960, 1970’s or 1960 probably.
MRS. MALLETT: Probably 1960’s.
MR. WILCOX: Did the hospital change a lot?
MRS. MALLETT: Oh, yes the hospital was different. I went back, I’m thinking I went directly to the Recovery Room. No, I had been working the Recovery Room and I took off time to raise the children and then I come back and I went back to Recovery. I took a refresher course to do so. I did that on my own to get reacquainted with changes in surgery.
MR. WILCOX: You worked until 1980 something?
MRS. MALLETT: I think I retired in 1987.
MR. WILCOX: Your overall memories of working at the hospital were pretty good ones?
MRS. MALLETT: Yes, yes oh I loved working there. But back then ---I don’t know how they do it now, but back in Recovery then we took care of patients after surgery till they were ready to go to the room and then took them up to the to the floor, so as to give the floor nurses an accurate report on progress.
MR. WILCOX: Stayed right with them thru recovery back to the room? How long did people usually stay in Recovery?
MRS. MALLETT: Oh, approximately an hour depending on what their surgery was. I can recall some of them being in there as much as three hours, if they had a reaction to the morphine or whatever. They would wake up, but if you took them to the room too fast the patient may forget and get out of bed, you know with the hangover from the morphine. So you kept them in recovery until it was safe to take them back.
MR. WILCOX: In all your years were you ever a patient here?
MRS. MALLETT: Yes, I had a total hip replacement a total knee replacement.
MR. WILCOX: How did it go?
MRS. MALLETT: No problem, it went well. Doing fine today.
MR. WILCOX: Did you know any of the people who were doing your nursing?
MRS. MALLETT: Yes.
MR. WILCOX: Anything else you would like to tell us about working in the hospital?
MRS. MALLETT: No, I think I have covered it all. I know they were good working years. I can only say the best for the hospital.
MR. WILCOX: Thank you very much for helping us.
[End of Interview]
Transcript reviewed and edited for accuracy by Lois Mallett and Bill Wilcox, August 11, 2008. This is not a “Verbatim” transcription, it has been edited to a “Content” transcription.
