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R.N. retires cap, keeps shifts
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FarkPHILIP — Jeanne Radway might have traded her nurse’s cap and crisp, white uniforms for colorful, more contemporary nursing attire, but that hasn’t changed the quality of care Radway has given patients for almost 60 years.
“I’m surprised she still doesn’t wear her cap,” said Carmen Fees, director of nursing at the Philip Nursing Home where Radway, who turns 80 on Tuesday, still works two to three shifts a week.
Radway can still “run circles around younger gals,” Fees said.
Fees and Mary Lanning, director of nurses at Hans P. Peterson Memorial Hospital, said Radway is a dependable part-time nurse.
“She comes in a heartbeat if we need her,” Lanning said.
Radway is an experienced, no-nonsense professional, according to her supervisors.
Radway is a senior nurse “who knows her stuff and does things the right way, because that’s the right way,” according to Lanning.
Radway admits she was reluctant to “get with the flow of the crowd” and give up her nurse’s cap, a traditional symbol of a registered nurse.
“I was proud of my cap, and that’s why I wore it for so long,” Radway said. “To me, nurses always wore white hats and white uniforms.”
As she approaches 80, Radway said she plans on working at least another year until she has her 50th anniversary as an employee at Philip Health Services.
Before working in Philip, Radway spent 10 years working in Chicago hospitals and as a private-duty nurse.
Radway graduated from Philip High School in 1944. She was born and raised in Oldham but spent her senior year in Philip at the invitation of an uncle, who was superintendent of schools.
“His wife went back to teaching, and they needed a baby sitter,” Radway said.
But the move introduced Jeanne Ferry to her husband of 58 years, Rex Radway.
While Rex Radway went off to the service, his future bride started nursing school.
“I always liked taking care of people,” Radway said.
A nursing-cadet program promised to pay her $10 to $15 a month with a commitment to join the military.
“If the war wouldn’t have ended, I’d have gone into the service,” she said.
By 1947, when Radway graduated from the nursing program at Presentation College in Aberdeen, the war was over. The Radways married and moved to Chicago, where they spent the next 10 years. Three of their six children were born in Chicago.
Radway worked at three Chicago hospitals and also worked as a private nurse.
“I worked nights so Rex could take care of the children,” Radway said. She learned to sleep while her children napped.
“Perhaps I abused myself,” Radway said. “But it never hurt me.”
The family returned to Philip in August of 1957, moving to a ranch 26 miles north of Philip.
“When we moved out here, I didn’t intend to work,” Radway said.
It didn’t take long for the local hospital to learn a new nurse was in the area. Registered nurses are still hard to attract to small-town hospitals, Radway said.
“The day after I came, the phone rang, and they asked me if I could work,” Radway said. “So I went to work the first of September.”
On her first day, Radway had a one-hour orientation before being left on her own with only a nurse’s aide in the 21-bed hospital.
“In those days, they had patients in the hallways,” Fees said.
Today, nurses have at least a six-week orientation, Radway said.
“I was young and foolish,” Radway said, shrugging. “Today, I could never do it.”
Over the next several years, the Radway family added three more children.
Burned out on overnight shifts, Radway chose to work a shift from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. as much as possible so her husband could care for the children in the evenings.
An admitted “good cook,” Radway left many a meal in the oven for her family.
As a working mom, Radway said, she did miss many of her children’s events, but she does not believe it hurt her family.
“I missed a lot of functions, but it was good for the kids,” Radway said. “It taught them to be independent and how to work. I don’t have a lazy kid.”
Her children claim she was easier to get along with when she worked.
“If you enjoy your work, it shows,” Radway said.
She said that even at the end of a long, hard shift, when you’re tired, “there’s still satisfaction” in knowing you helped someone that day.
Radway was frequently called upon to help friends and family in an emergency.
She delivered two babies — one in her car only miles from town, and the other, in a neighbor’s home during a blizzard.
Over the years, Radway’s training lead to an unexpected role as a caregiver to the terminally ill.
“She’s the hospice nurse of Haakon County,” her granddaughter, Marcy Morrison, said. Like two of her aunts, Morrison followed her grandmother’s example and became a nurse.
Radway cared for several family members, including her husband and a daughter, Nancy Carlson, during the final months of their illnesses.
Morrison said it takes a special dedication to care for someone who is terminally ill, especially when it is in addition to a job doing the same thing.
Her grandmother did it “because there was nobody else,” Morrison said.
As a nurse, Morrison said that she admires her grandmother’s patience and dedication to her profession.
“I don’t know how she has coped with so many changes,” Morrison said.
Some of those changes included the discovery of sulfa drugs, the Rh factor in blood, the introduction of disposable surgical gloves and intravenous tubing, to name only a few.
Radway still reads medical journals, and she is an avid bridge player, which, she says, helps keep her mind sharp.
She prefers working her 4- and 8-hour shifts in the less-stressful environment of the nursing home, but she still occasionally accepts a hospital shift.
Radway’s retirement is not something the nursing directors look forward to.
“She’s an inspiration,” Lanning said. “She’s a great teacher. She has a heart as big as the state of South Dakota, and she has good common sense and a good intuition.”
Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com
After almost 60 years as a registered nurse, Jeanne Radway still works two to three shifts a week at the Philip Nursing Home. Radway, who will be 80 years old on Tuesday, has worked as a nurse for almost 60 years — about 50 of them with Philip Health Services. She says she plans to keep working at least one more year. (Andrea Cook, Journal staff)
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