Two Maiden Ladies

by Harold Updike

During my third year of school, I worked as a student nurse in Lackawanna at the steel mill for two months. Two maiden ladies were the public health nurses there. When they heard there were two men coming, they said, "No way are we going to have two guys traipsing around with us." They didn't think that men should be in the field.

For a while, they were downright disagreeable. But Sam and I kept on telling stories and laughing and joking, and they finally caught on that we weren't so bad after all.

These were women in their 60's. And you know, women years back didn't ask men anything about sex or anything else. But we were approached by the workers with various questions. Some of the men were pretty rough. It was things like venereal disease, and things about family life, that they were reluctant to ask the women about but they didn't mind asking men.

I learned how to talk to people there, which was very helpful later in my career.