In May 1957 my family moved from Streator, Illinois to La Mesa. That fall I
attended kindergarten at Rolando Elementary School. I could not wait until the next year when I would be able to go to the big school that my brother attended. So in the fall of 1958 wearing my green jumper, beanie and sweater, I was enrolled in the first grade at St. Martin Academy. Sister Mary Beadewas our teacher and she had a class of 52 students. I loved school, especially reading. At recess on my first day I wanted to get a drink of water but did not know how to work the drinking fountain and was to shy to ask anyone. That is how I met my friend Sarah. She just came up and showed me how to do it. Our third grade teacher, Sister Rogeria, taught us how to write and it had to be perfect. To this day I still get compliments on my penmanship. Sister Rogeria had a beautiful garden in the backyard of the convent. Instead of having noontime recess you could go and help her in the garden. She would sit on the bench and tell us what to do. When you got to fifth grade you got to go and help in the cafeteria. Everyone wanted to do that because you got to leave class a little early to go and get the lunch set up and you got a free lunch. Mrs. Shilling and Fran ran the kitchen. We were sitting in our classroom in sixth grade when Sister Cecil came in to tell us that President Kennedy had been shot.

We had a good time putting on shows and plays. They were quite good. The eighth grade always put on a big show before graduation. We did not have much in the way of competitive sports with other schools but we played a lot of volleyball and dodge ball, my favorite.

I had made up my mind when I was nine years old that I wanted to become a nurse. I also wanted to attend Rosary High School. I was a very good student and got good grades but when it came time to take the entrance exam to Rosary I did not pass it. Sister Andrea, our principal and eighth grade teacher, went to bat for me and contacted the school and made sure I got accepted. I will always be grateful to her for that. I attended Rosary High School and graduated in 1970. I applied for the nursing program at Grossmont Community College. In a class of fifty students they accepted only five high school graduates and I was one of them. I graduated in 1972 with an Associate in Science and a RN degree. Two years later I was
accepted into the first nursing class of the Philip Y. Hahn School of
Nursing at the University of San Diego. I graduated from there in 1976 with a BSN. I have been working as a registered nurse for 44 years. I have been at UCSD Medical Center since 1985.

I owe a lot of who I am, what I do, and how I do it to my start at St. Martin's and all of the teachers who worked with me.