Bare Bio Facts - Courtship and Marraige

The night before Thanksgiving in 1969 I went to the Desert Inn on the Van Wyck Expressway (Queens). Since I was working early the next day, I drove alone to this "pick up" establishment so I could leave a little earlier than my girlfriends.  I met two guys that night.  Walter asked me out but Bob was the one I wanted.  A month later, after praying a special Christmas Novena, I found Bob again (in a city of over 8 million people!) at Pep McGuires on Queens Blvd.  I am embarrassed to say we "made out" like banshees right there at the bar (but then again, I had had two martini's which will loosen one's inhibitions).
After a rather tumultuous courtship ( I threw my engagement ring "away" a couple of times), we married on September 18th, 1971 at my parish church, St. Michael's the Archangel in the East New York section of Brooklyn.  We lived in a small apartment in Ridgewood, Queens (the one I originally shared with my roommate, Joanne) for the first three and a half years of our marriage. We moved out of the metropolitan New York area (to the "country")for good on my 30th birthday, March 9, 1975.
The problem was we moved "way too country" , i.e., 17 miles northeast of Binghamton, NY to our mobile home and recreation property which was on a dirt road that had been advertised in the local paper as 5 acres " high and dry" .  This proved to be a lot more rural than a girl from Brooklyn and a boy from Astoria could handle.

Bare Facts Bio - I keep trying to be concise but it isn't working

I grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn, attended PS 76 until 4^th grade and then my parents transferred me and my siblings to St. Michael’s Elementary School.   Suffice it to say, this was not a very good experience for me.    I graduated from Our Lady of Wisdom Academy in Ozone Park, Queens before starting SVH Nursing School in Sept. 1962. 

In High School, I had never heard of St. Vincent’s Hospital until my dear, sweet mother encouraged me to apply to their nursing school.  She said her cousin was treated there and she had a very positive experience.   She told me it had a stellar reputation and I should send in my application.

As part of the application process, I was interviewed by a young male (? who he was I do not know but I liked him and he liked me) and on February 26, 1962 I received a tentative acceptance letter, “pending satisfactory completion of your high school program…..and your physical examination”   which was signed by Sister Marian Catherine, R. N. Director, Department of Nursing and Nursing Education.

I attended registration for admission and orientation on Thursday, Sept 6^th at 10:30 and was sent back home, “Students are now free to go home and are to return to the residence Sunday before 9 P.M.”  ………..“The school year will commence on Monday, September 10^th. “

Thus began one of the most profound experiences of my lifetime.

There were things I loved and things I hated about nursing school and I plan to continue documenting these in my Unconventional Biography.  For purposes here, I will say I especially loved the tangent aspects of my experiences, i.e., living in a dorm atmosphere in Greenwich village, the magical feeling of walking into the dances in the school auditorium in my full dress uniform (boy did I feel special!), marching up 5^th Avenue in the St. Patrick’s Parades, going out to the bars and frat parties, etc, etc. 

After graduation, I worked for a year in Pediatrics at St. Vincent’s and quit my job in August 1966 to hop around Europe for 6 weeks with fellow classmates and late bloomers, Mary Jane Sassone, Susan Smith and Eleanor Moffett.   We had a marvelous time with museums, monuments and men – not necessarily in that order, if you get my drift.

On my return to the good old USA, I took a job in Pediatrics at Jamaica Hospital in Queens and quickly learned that not every hospital meets the standards of St. Vincent’s or St. Vincent’s Nurses.  When I arrived at work one morning to discover a toddler basically dead in his bed from dehydration because the physician on call during the night did not know how to start and IV/cutdown on a young child, I knew I could not continue to work in such an atmosphere.

I then joined Mary Jane Sassone and Sue Smith on the American Red Cross Blood Mobile.  This was a “fun” job for young, unattached females since the Blood Mobile went to such places as Police Precincts, Fire Houses, West Point, the prisons, etc., etc.  We had great fun and got a lot of dates (maybe not from the prison population) although I did on one occasion take blood from my old boyfriend’s brother.

The problem with this job was that  after a year of the same activities day in and day out, I thought I would go absolutely nuts and be brain dead if I had to repeat the  medical interview questions one more time.   When I realized how close I was to whacking the next guy who said, “Yeah, my wife” when I asked, “Are you allergic to anything?” I decided it was time to leave this “dating pool job”.

After that, I was excited to land a job at the soon to be opened, Downstate Medical Center directly across from Kings County Hospital in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn.  I was hired to set-up and staff a brand new Pediatric Specialty Clinic (aka Clinic D).  This was a fantastic job, right up my alley.  We had a different pediatric specialty clinic every morning and afternoon, Monday through Friday.  I enjoyed having a lot of autonomy on how things were going to be run; I had tremendous teaching and learning opportunities, and very few emergencies where quick decisions needed to be made (As you might have gathered I need a lot of time to moll things over and this characteristic does not meld well with certain types of nursing jobs.  You wouldn’t want your E.R. nurse to moll things over as you were hemorrhaging to death, now would you?”  Nonetheless, I realized that I might have to deal with a true emergency in the Clinic situation and I wanted to be prepared to handle this so I signed up for a 4 month Pediatric Intensive Care Course across the street at Kings County Hospital. Center.  Wanting some more practical, " hands-on" experience, I decided to work in the Pediatric ICU at Downstate for awhile and ended up staying a little over a year in this PICU.  I much preferred the Specialty Clinics and eventually was able to return to my position there. 

All during this time period, I continued to look for Mr. Right.   It took me quite some time to find him, and I must add, this was not for lack of trying.  I shouldn’t admit this but I’m now so old I can say things I wouldn't have admitted to in my younger years.  My Grandpa, TJ O’Donnell, saw so many guys coming and going that he once said, “Mary, you’ll date anyone who wears pants.”   A bit insulting, wouldn’t you say even if it was bordering a little on the truth?

# 3 The Unconventional Biography of a St. Vincent's R.N.

Because my birthday wasn’t until March 9^th, I was only 16 years old for most of my senior year at Our Lady of Wisdom Academy.   At this young age, the prospect of attending four more years of school was unbearable; I saw it as a monstrous chunk out of my life!   So, even though I thought I would really enjoy being a High School Algebra or Geometry teacher, I couldn’t imagine committing to this much more education.   I was also frightened when I thought about the prospect of having to stand up in front of a class and teach.  

I also couldn’t be a secretary since the girls in the academic program at my high school weren’t allowed to take typing or any other commercial subjects.    I had no serious, viable marriage prospects at that point in my life, so the role of housewife and mother didn’t appear to be an immediate option.   And as I have already alluded to at the beginning of my story, entering a convent was out of the question.  The thought of becoming a nun literally made me sick to my stomach.   

Thanks to my baby sister, Meg, I now knew one thing for certain - I loved taking care of babies.  Then I found out that Nursing School, although still a painfully long time, was a wee bit shorter than college, only 3 years as opposed to 4. Lastly, I was awarded a N.Y.S. Regents Scholarship for Nursing that would completely cover the cost of my nurses training program.  I was offered a measly, relatively useless financial “incentive”  award if I had decided to attend college and I came from a household where we didn’t have a whole heck  of a lot of extra money floating around.  My “chosen” path was becoming clearer and clearer.    I would become a nurse and take care of babies for the rest of my life!

# 2 - The Unconventional SVH Biography of Mary Beth Fries Buchner

To be completely honest there were other influences in my decision to enter Nursing School.  Embarrassingly, most of these influences were superficial, silly or based on money.   When I was approximately   4 or 5 years old, my paternal Aunt, Rosemary Fries Mc Bride, who  was herself a Registered Nurse, bought me a complete nursing outfit, white dress, cap, cape and all.  I loved it and wore it to the next Halloween party and just about every day until I grew out of it.    I was also rather impressed by nurse, Mary, who worked for our family physician, Dr. William Carrington, and thought it would be nice to be just like her so I could present kids with lollipops after I gave them their shots.

Then, my parents presented me with a marvelous gift in the form of a newborn sister in June, 1954. They were also kind enough to give me free rein in her care. I was allowed to bathe her, change her diapers, dress her, carry her around in my arms, and put her to bed.   I can’t begin to express how much this meant to me.  I was only 9 and ½ years old but they trusted me completely and I knew I wouldn’t betray their trust.  I had so much fun taking care of this real live baby sister that I knew if I became a nurse, I would be able to go on taking care of babies the rest of my life.   If I could have gotten my R.N. by only taking one long specialty in Pediatrics, I would have done so. 

The Unconventional Biography of a St. Vincent's R.N.

Fifty years ago on June 15, 1965 I graduated from St. Vincent's Hospital School of Nursing, NY, NY.

This November, the members of the Class of 1965 will come together to celebrate who we are and where we have been.  One of our classmates, Patty, is compiling our biographies for us - God Bless her, it is a rather daunting undertaking.  I have decided to take a little different approach in writing my biography.  In order to motivate myself, I plan to write little sections at a time. I will put them in my blog in case anyone cares to read it.  Honestly, I am doing this primarily for myself and will not be offended in the least, if no one else wants to read it.   After 50 years, I think it will do me some good to reflect on my nursing experience.

I became a nurse because I made a promise to God when I was young that I felt I just couldn’t keep.  I was about 6 years old when I developed a very high fever and a bit of delirium.  I knew I was pretty sick and I asked my mother if she thought I was going to die, expecting that her answer would reassure me.   Instead, my mother, ever truthful, said she didn’t know.  Figuring this might be the end of me, I promised God that if I didn’t die, I would become a nun.

No sooner were the words on my lips when I began to dread the thought of having to enter the convent.   And, as I got older, I realized that I liked the opposite sex way too much and was not cut out for the celibate life.   This was appearing more and more like a promise I just couldn’t keep.   Nonetheless, I felt terrible for having deceived the Almighty.   I didn’t want to offend God to such a major extent, so I thought about another option that I thought He might like almost as well.   In order to ease my conscience a little, I decided to become a nurse so that I could care for His sick and needy.   I looked at it as simply a modification of my initial promise.   I would dedicate my life to Him, without the unbearable sacrifice of having to seclude myself from the world with a bunch of other women.