Rex Hospital School of Nursing - Nightingale Yearbook (Raleigh, NC)

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yysrgwiv We M f- be .nw-.w,,,., M P'6m.,: Nw -W , aww: W , Q Entrance Daniels House, St. Mar-y's Street OUR SCHOOL OF NURSING Way back in 1894 there were only two graduate nurses in the whole wide State of North Carolina. One of them, Miss Mary L. Wyche, a recent graduate of Philadelphia General Hospital, came to Rex as Head Nurse in July of that year. In October twith a hospital bed capacity of twenty-threell, she opened the doors of Rex to five enthusiastic young women who constituted the first class of the first school of nursing in North Carolina. Two and one-half years later, four of the five graduated, including Miss Rosa Hill of Raleigh, who still appears with undaunted regularity at the annual banquet of Rex Alumnae-much to the delight of younger graduates. The customs of the school have changed somewhat with the passing years. We no longer have classes in the hospital so that if a bell rings we can be excused to answer it . . . nor is the Director of Nurses fformerly called The Head Nurse J any more the sole owner of textbooks which she might generously loan to an ambitious student by special request . . . town students do not live at home, reporting on-duty each morning at eight o'clock and off-duty at six p.m. . . . instead, our nursing education and recreational departments now occupy the entire lower floor of the beautiful and spacious new nurses' home, Daniels House fnamed in honor of our dear friend and benefactor, Mrs. Josephus Danielsl, on St. Mary's Street . . . Two full-time teachers are now employed solely for the purpose of guiding our instruction and word-practice, and an additional staff-faculty of twenty- four specialists in their particular fields of medicine and nursing contribute to our present three- year course by teaching the subjects for which they are especially prepared . . . Town students to- day share the attractive living quarters and the fellowship of dormitory life at Daniels House with other students from various sections of North Carolina and adjoining states. The alumnae have grown from a charter member group of 34 graduates in 1924, to a present membership of 106, approximately 270 diplomas having been granted since those first four of the gay nineties. D K Eighteen 1

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L Seventeen t 7? EARLY MGRNING7' if I think that there could never be A thing more beautiful to see Than student nurses on their way To start their duties of the day. Their eyes agteam with morning light, Their dresses clean and crisp and white, Their voices soft, their footsteps swift, Their rnincts alert, their hands a gift- A lovely gift of service rare, And tenderness, and hope, and care. I think that there Could never be A thing more heautffut to see. fWith apologies to JOYCE KILMER-E. PJ ' D 44

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Where We Go A-Nursing p TI-IE STORY OF REX In 1839 John Rex, a native of Pennsylvania and one of the earliest settlers of Raleigh, be- queathed his property for the establishment of a hospital for the sick and afiiicted poor of the City of Raleigh. Dating from 1839, Rex Hospital is the oldest incorporated hospital in North Carolina, and the first to have a School of Nursing. On August 4, 1893, the trustees bought the old Manly mansion. The building was repaired, and an annex of two stories for colored patients was erected. The work was organized and the hospital opened for patients May 1, 1894. The Raleigh Academy of Medicine agreed to give their service to charity in rotation. In 1896, an eight-room annex was built for paying patients. A cornerstone for a new building on the adjoining lot was laid at a massive ceremony in 1908. The hospital continued to grow and on May 31, 1937, patients and equipment were moved into another new building on St. Mary's Street. It is now a two-hundred bed hospital that qualifies under the standards of the American College of Surgeons as an accredited hospital. is recognized by the American Medical Association for the training of internes, and by the Standardizatiion Board of the North Carolina Nurses Association for the conduction of an A-Grade School of Nursing. D 44 I Nineteen