Returning to St. Luke’s School of Nursing 50 years later

Madalena Jezierski of Dartmouth had “no intention” of becoming a nurse when she was a young woman in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It would take working at Lumbard’s coffee shop at St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford for her to apply to nursing school.

“The lady who ran [Lumbard’s] was the one who told me about the nursing school because she was saying, ‘What are you going to do when you get out of high school?’” Jezierski recalled. “I had no idea, and so she was the one who convinced me to apply.”

Jezierski applied to St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing and said she ended up loving the school and her career in nursing.

“I loved taking care of patients, so it was the right choice,” she said.

But when Jezierski entered the school in 1972,  little did she know that she was joining the last graduating class.

“They never advertised it, they never said anything about it, but we ended up being the last class,” she said.

In 1972, talks began on whether to close the school as four-year degree programs at universities were growing in popularity.

And in 1975, 90 years after opening its doors, St. Luke’s School of Nursing shut down.

Across the state, other diploma nursing programs were also closing, including the Newton-Wellesley and New England Baptist programs, which alum Susan Bonnar of Rochester had also applied for.

“I think it was just the trend at the time,” she said.

Bonnar stated that St. Luke’s was “ahead of its time," noting that the hospital had one of the first radiological departments and a strong stroke program.

“When we went to school, we did 10 weeks of every speciality,” she said.

Specialities included psych surgery, medical-surgical nursing and working in the stroke unit. Students also spent 10 weeks at the Brockton Veterans Affairs Medical Center psych ward where they worked with veterans from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Unlike the degree programs of today, St. Luke’s followed a three-year continuous course, with students attending year round, except for two weeks at Christmas and two weeks during the summer.

“We went to school longer than the kids do now to get a nursing degree,” Bonnar said.

She said that diploma schools were more hands-on, with students often working with patients at St. Luke’s Hospital.

“We learned how to do it. We went to the hospital and did it ‘til we perfected it, and [you] didn’t pass until you perfected it,” Jezierski said.

She said the program had labs where the students practiced with Bunsen burners, taking temperatures, putting in an IV and more.

“We would go to the hospital, and all we did was go from patient to patient, doing that one task,” she said.

Attending St. Luke’s nursing school also gave Jezierski an opportunity to move away from home.

“I only lived eight blocks from the school, but my parents didn’t speak English, so I told my parents it was mandatory that I lived there so I could get out,” said Jezierski.

The students all lived in what they referred to as “the white home,” where they had house mothers who kept a tight curfew and a platform over the entryway where students would go to sunbathe, which they called Pebble Beach.

“We used to take album covers, line them with tin foil to use as reflectors, and we used to use baby oil and iodine and never knew [the] damage,” Jezierski said.

Coming from a low income family of immigrants, Jezierski applied to a scholarship program to attend the school, which gave her a free ride for the three years, in addition to a $50 stipend a month.

“Fifty dollars went a long way back then, so it was unbelievable,” she said. “I got this amazing education.”

Fifty years later, the school’s alumni will be holding their final reunion, which will also serve as “the final hurrah,” Jezierski said.

“This event is really to celebrate the school and to close the door,” she said.

The reunion is being held at Venus De Milo in Swansea, which coincidentally was where a lot of the large events that St. Luke’s hosted were held, including Christmas parties and banquets.

Bonnar said of the upcoming event, “I’m hoping that some people will connect that haven’t seen each other since they graduated.”

Alumni can contact Bonnar at s.bonnar@comcast.net for more information.