Laura Goods (primary interviewee) and Veora Lundy interview recording, 1994 July 13
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| Felix Armfield | We are on take three, continuing with Mrs. Goods and Mrs. Lundy. Mrs. Goods, you can talk more about [indistinct 00:00:15]. | 0:04 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | The doctors who taught [indistinct 00:00:20]. Dr. Fredricks would come in at irregular moments to talk to us. Now he was the epitome of the Black doctor, Dr. Lewis Fredricks. And Dr. Epps was his protégé. | 0:16 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 0:31 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Okay? We had a doctor, who was that doctor who taught ear, eyes, nose and throat? | 0:44 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Aligiar? | 0:47 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Who? | 0:48 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Aligiar White? | 0:48 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | No, this Black doctor— | 0:51 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Dr. Horton? | 0:52 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —Dr. Horton. | 0:53 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Horton, yeah. Logan Horton. | 0:54 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Dr. Logan Horton. He was brilliant. He taught us ENT, and we got our special experience on ENT by going to the doctor. | 0:56 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 1:05 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Okay? Logan Horton. | 1:05 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 1:05 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | We really had a rich fundamental experience. And once we finished our program at [indistinct 00:01:18] Hospital, then we got our caps and gowns and we had a ceremony, and Mrs. Moore would invite people from the National Association of Negro of Nurses. | 1:15 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. That's right. | 1:30 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | The National Association of Colored Nurses. | 1:30 |
| Felix Armfield | The National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses? | 1:30 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. | 1:30 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. | 1:30 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And we had [indistinct 00:01:31], surgeons, they would come and speak at our graduation. And then we would have a reception in the hall, Grant Hall. I remember that. And our family and friends were there. | 1:30 |
| Felix Armfield | Uh-huh. | 1:58 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | So when I got my gown, I had sitting in the audience, my husband, my mother-in-law, my grandmother, she couldn't come, she was old and sick, and my son. And everybody knew who I was, because he was telling everybody that was his momma. (laughs) | 1:58 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 2:08 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And then we went on to Charity. At Charity, we were on affiliation. And we were given car tokens for a week. And then when we got to Charity, we were given card, twenty to fifty dollars, minimum. | 2:13 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 2:23 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | We had all White teachers, doctors and nurses. And the people who were teaching us, only had diplomas, but they training graduates. But they were the head nurses. And the sisters were in charge at Charity, they were the supervisors. And I never was so hurt in my whole life as I was, when I went there. Because I had a glorified [indistinct 00:02:37]. They were supposed to be so Christian and spiritual, well then I expected them to treat us that way, but they were racist too. They would go on solarium they called it, all the nurses who worked— | 2:31 |
| Felix Armfield | Solarium? | 2:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yeah. | 2:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Can you spell that? | 2:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | S-O-L-A-R-I-U-M. | 2:44 |
| Felix Armfield | S-O-L— | 2:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Uh-huh. Solarium, S-O-L-A-R-I-U-M. | 2:44 |
| Felix Armfield | —L-A-R-I-U-M? | 2:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Mm-hmm. | 2:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 2:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And it was like patients would go on sit, [indistinct 00:03:30] those who could. Anybody outside the [indistinct 00:03:33] area. They would call us the names of the nurses who would go up to work on certain units. So the first morning we got there—And then the stopped calling her names with the Charity graduates and the other White graduates who were affiliated. Because people came from all over the [indistinct 00:03:35]. | 2:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 3:35 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And they would always call our names Black. They would always call them miss, miss so and so, miss so and so. And they would march off. [indistinct 00:04:07] march off and go over there [indistinct 00:04:09]. When they got to us, now we had our [indistinct 00:04:10] back then we were too, they called us Nurse Rose, Nurse Parks, Nurse Haywood, and all I think is when they said nurse, the way they said it was nigger. | 3:48 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. Okay. | 4:09 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | So about a week after we had been there, we decided, the Dillard graduates, when they called our names we are not going to say "present." When they call our names, we're going to whack our hands on our aprons, whip 'em, and walk out with our apron. | 4:09 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And we did. | 4:21 |
| Felix Armfield | So you walked out of Charity? | 4:32 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | We walked out of the solarium [indistinct 00:04:59]. | 4:32 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 4:32 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Without saying "present" that was the way we were rebelling. | 4:32 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 4:32 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | We did not say "present" or "yes," or a thing. We just get out our aprons as we walked. They were starched too stiff, those aprons. If you stood them up, if you put them together a bunch of them, they will stand straight on up on their own. They were just that stiff. You remember that? | 4:32 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 4:32 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Mm-hmm. | 4:32 |
| Felix Armfield | Well, we're going to come back to that story, because I want to know more about it. I want to know more about your career [indistinct 00:05:33]. Mrs. Lundy, where did you being working once you had completed all of the necessary training? | 5:39 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Charity Hospital— | 5:45 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:05:47] | 5:45 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | —as a relief nurse. That was temporary employment. | 5:47 |
| Felix Armfield | Now what do you mean when you say as a relief nurse? | 5:49 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Nurses who had the night off, whatever time they had off on the shift, I would fill in. | 5:54 |
| Felix Armfield | So they could call you at any time and ask you to come in? | 6:00 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well no, I mean, when those nurses were assigned, they would call me in, because I knew I was going to work every day. It was a matter of knowing where. | 6:05 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 6:16 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | So that wasn't very difficult. But the difficult part was when you see a patient once and you don't see them any more, you on to somebody, you're not familiar with your caseload, that makes it a little bit, that's difficult. | 6:17 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 6:32 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | So it wasn't too bad, except for that. | 6:33 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 6:37 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | But where you see a patient, say maybe a week, or three or four days and you get used to his routine, it's easy. | 6:38 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 6:46 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | But one comes in one day and is transferred somewhere else or he dies, and then another patient is in there, it makes it a little different. | 6:46 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Now how long did you serve as a relief nurse? | 6:55 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Not very long. You see, I used to stand up in the windows at Charity at night, and look out and see people going to church and going other places. And here I am cooped up, no holidays except maybe a piece of holiday and that sort of thing. So I knew I wasn't going to stay a relief nurse all the time. In the meantime, there was a nurse in public health named Hubbard, Estelle Hubbard. She was a Black public health nurse. And we used to talk a lot. For some reason, elderly people took a liking. And she said Mrs. Lundy I'm going to talk to Mary Raley. Raley was the person who was running the health department. | 7:08 |
| Felix Armfield | Mary Raley? | 7:58 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Mary Raley. | 8:01 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | White. | 8:01 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | White, sure she was White. Yeah, she was White. | 8:02 |
| Felix Armfield | And Rally, R-A-L-L-Y? | 8:04 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Beg your pardon? | 8:04 |
| Felix Armfield | How do you spell Raley? | 8:04 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | R-A-L-E-Y. | 8:04 |
| Felix Armfield | R-A-L-E-Y. | 8:08 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. And Mrs. Hubbard carried a little weight. They didn't have Negro clinics for Negro children when Mrs. Hubbard was working. But how she came in contact was when they open the clinic for the Whites and she questioned it, they said they didn't have no place to hold a clinic for Black people, Black children. So she says, "Well, I live in a double house, and you can use that half for the clinic." And that's how they got the clinic down on Roman street, the first clinic for Negro children, because Estelle Hubbard, yeah, offered her house. And Mrs. Raley was on the spot. | 8:11 |
| Felix Armfield | So Estelle Hubbard? | 8:59 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Estelle Hubbard was her name. | 9:05 |
| Felix Armfield | Opened up her home? | 9:10 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Half her home. | 9:11 |
| Felix Armfield | For the first clinic for Black pediatric— | 9:14 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | For Black children. See, the only excuse was they didn't have a place, so she said, "Here it is." | 9:15 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 9:22 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And they opened the clinic. And it ran for years, even after Estelle Hubbard was gone. | 9:23 |
| Felix Armfield | Was that your first public health nurse job? | 9:27 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Which— | 9:34 |
| Felix Armfield | Did you [indistinct 00:09:36]—? | 9:34 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, when I came along, when I finished, they had opened up the clinic. And you know primarily, they followed communicable diseases and things like that, and isolated people if they had communicable diseases at home. That was the approach. But when they got, the child welfare is what they called it, they got into politics, which meant the city operated it. So it was quite different. You followed these people. You referred them if they needed some type of help. All the poor Negro people could bring their children to a clinic within that area for whatever an infant needs. We took care of them until they were five years old. They didn't have to come as often, but they did. | 9:35 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Then they opened the maternal clinic where they taught the mothers to take care of themselves during their pregnancy. And if they qualified, they could deliver at home. If not, they went to Charity. They came out with a new baby. A public health nurse went out again and reviewed them on how to care for the child, how to care for themselves, and where to go if they ran into difficulties. | 10:31 |
| Felix Armfield | But when is all this taking place? What years are we talking about? | 10:58 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well all this was going on gradually in 1934 and it's still going on. I don't know how long Mrs. Hubbard had been working for. | 11:03 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. [indistinct 00:11:12] 1934 and began working— | 11:10 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 11:14 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:11:15] system that was going on [indistinct 00:11:17]. | 11:16 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. And of course the city opened up places and they provided places. And I remember when they built the housing projects, and in most of the housing projects they set up clinics where mothers and babies could go. Now for home deliveries [indistinct 00:11:37] some mothers for care. And if they qualified and they had all the necessary equipment to have a baby at home, they would list them. And they had a list of nurses. And when that person went into labor, they called the office. They office would send out a nurse and she would check the labor and find out if the person really needed to have a doctor, or when the labor got so intense, when to call the doctor. And they would go out and deliver the baby. | 11:17 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And the next day, the nurse would go out to see how the baby was doing and demonstrate how to bathe them and how to care for them, and that sort of thing, give them an appointment to the clinic. And when he was old enough, he was referred for immunizations or whatever. Now sometimes [indistinct 00:12:26]. | 12:08 |
| Felix Armfield | Was that the kind of work you did? | 12:26 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That's what I did, yeah. | 12:28 |
| Felix Armfield | You did? | 12:36 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. And I think I worked all over New Orleans. | 12:37 |
| Felix Armfield | You worked all over New Orleans? | 12:37 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | All over New Orleans, yeah. | 12:37 |
| Felix Armfield | Really? | 12:37 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Across the river and to boundary this way in the south. | 12:38 |
| Felix Armfield | Did you go out to the West Bank at that time? | 12:43 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, that's across the river, yeah. | 12:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Across the river, okay. | 12:46 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And incidentally, established a clinic over there in one of the public schools. | 12:47 |
| Felix Armfield | But most all of your patients were Black families? | 12:52 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. Right, until the last minutes. You know, when the war came, a lot of nurses went into the army. A lot of the husbands went and the nurses went with them. So they grabbed any kind of nurses. | 12:57 |
| Felix Armfield | Now which war? This is World War II? | 13:12 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Beg your pardon? | 13:13 |
| Felix Armfield | This is during World War II? | 13:14 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yes, yes— | 13:16 |
| Felix Armfield | And then they started having you to do things— | 13:17 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | For whoever, whatever call came up, whether it was White or Black available nurse. Now Charity was the same way when it got that bad. Negro nurses worked anyway in Charity, they had to. They had no choice. And a lot of them would say, "I don't want a nigger nurse taking care of me." They said, "Well go home." | 13:21 |
| Felix Armfield | You said they didn't want a nigger nurse taking care of them? | 13:46 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. And of course the Charity sister, the Catholics, double prejudice. If you don't want them, get up and go home. So time takes care of a lot of things, absolutely. | 13:50 |
| Felix Armfield | So during the war, when there was a greater need for nurses period, then they began to pick Black nurses to do those duties that prior to, they had reserved for White nurses? | 14:07 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That's right. But you see now, they always hired a staff after Mrs. Hubbard, a staff of Black nurses. And they catered to Black people. But once this war came on, whatever came up, whatever nurse was available, that's what you got. And if you didn't want it, well too bad. We had an old woman on Magazine Street and she was a diabetic. And her arm was as hard as this table, getting injections. And she was kind of mean. So one day the nurse [indistinct 00:14:53] wasn't there. So they asked me if I would do it. I said, "Sure, I'll go." So I went. There's more than one way to kill a cat, huh? | 14:20 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. | 15:01 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | I went and I introduced myself. I said, "I came to give you your insulin." "Oh, you think you can give me the insulin?" I said, "I'm a graduate nurse." "Oh, okay." I said, "You want your insulin?" "Oh, yes ma'am, yes ma'am." | 15:02 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Now you see why I love this lady and I keep in touch with her? | 15:19 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 15:21 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Because she was a nurse when I came along. But I was just looking up some stuff about Josie. Josie had preceded her. | 15:26 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 15:30 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah, I read that article in the paper. | 15:32 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 15:34 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I don't know if Josie [indistinct 00:15:36]. | 15:35 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Now you see— | 15:40 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:15:41] Armstrong— | 15:40 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Josie Armstrong. Now you see— | 15:40 |
| Felix Armfield | —died. | 15:40 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | —they were offering scholarships to nurses on the staff at one time. And so medical college of— | 15:45 |
| Felix Armfield | Who was? | 15:52 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Beg your pardon? | 15:52 |
| Felix Armfield | Who was offering the scholarships? | 15:52 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | The city. | 15:52 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 15:52 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. And so Josie said to me, "You going to apply?" I said, "Yes indeed, I'm going to apply." So I did. | 15:55 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:16:04]. | 16:02 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And they wrote back and said the bed population of the hospital was adequate, that they didn't have enough medical patients, they didn't have enough surgical patients and things like that. | 16:04 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | At Flint? | 16:17 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | At Flint. So I said, "Well, Charity is over there. You can go over there and see if we can make it up." And we did. And we applied. And we went to Charity and made up what they called the bed shortage. | 16:20 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Mm-hmm. | 16:32 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | So the next year I applied, and I applied to three different schools. I reapplied to Medical College of Virginia. I applied to Michigan and another school in Texas. And all of them received me. So I said to Mrs. Stack, I said, "You know, I have been accepted by Medical College of Virginia. I've been accepted by Michigan." And I think, I don't remember whatever, but anyway she said, "Come to my office. We'll talk about it." I said, "What time?" She said, "About eight thirty." At 8:20 I was there, no Ms. Stack. Eight forty-five, she wasn't there. nine o'clock, she wasn't there. So I got up and I went to Mrs. Calfield's office just across the hall from her. She was the director. | 16:33 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | I said, "Mrs. Stack told me to come here at eight thirty and she's not here. And I think I'll have to go." She said, "All right, and I'll tell her you were here." So later on she called me and told me she was busy, that's why she couldn't come. So she gave me another appointment, so I went. And she sat down and we talked and we talked. I said, "I came to see whether I would be accepted." And she said, "Well, I don't know, we'll have to talk about that later." | 17:20 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Now that's my second trip, so I was mad when I came down those steps. But I went on back to work. So I was at Calliope, Mrs. Jones said, "Well, Lundy, how'd you make out?" I said, "I didn't make out." She said, "You're not going?" I said, "Yes I'm going. If she gives me the scholarship I'm going. And if she don't, I'm still going." So I got out the office and I called Mrs. [indistinct 00:18:20]. I said, "Now I was at Mrs. Stack's office and we talked, and she didn't say whether I was going to get the scholarship or not. Am I going to get this scholarship?" "Oh yeah," she said, "you'll get the scholarship." So I said, "Thank you." And I did it and I went on about my business. I went on to the University of Michigan. And that was an excellent experience. | 17:52 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. Now when did you go to the University of Michigan? | 18:42 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Where? | 18:52 |
| Felix Armfield | When. | 18:52 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | When. | 18:52 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | When. | 18:52 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | The year. | 18:52 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That must have been in the '40s. | 18:52 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 18:53 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | In the '40s. And they had a good school for public health. I mean, a full school. | 18:55 |
| Felix Armfield | So once you completed that training at Michigan, did you then come back? | 18:56 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh yeah. Well, I had to sign that I would go back for two years. But I was sorry that I had signed because I got an offer over there. | 19:01 |
| Felix Armfield | What happened? | 19:10 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | I got an offer during the course of my training at the University of Michigan. They called me and asked me if I would take a job. I said the only reason I don't, I signed to say that I would come back another two years, and I'll go back for that reason. | 19:11 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 19:27 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | But I want to tell you, there's prejudice no matter where you go. They talked about how liberal it was up in Michigan and all that kind of stuff. But they have what you call, orientation for all new people from different areas, so they could make you familiar with what was happening. And one of the things they pointed out, they said, they all liberal here. But if you go into one of the restaurants and they refuse to serve you, that a suit, because it's against the law. But on the other hand, if you go there and they serve you, and you eat, they'll break the plate right in front of you. So I said, "It don't matter where you go, you going to meet this prejudice." | 19:31 |
| Felix Armfield | From New Orleans and went all the way to Michigan, and it didn't change basically— | 20:21 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Too much, no. We had a very good professor in epidemiology. He got to be nationally known. And he would give us these handouts. You know? And one day he gave us this thing when we were talking about syphilis. And he said— | 20:25 |
| Felix Armfield | Now this is in the '40s when you're there? | 20:41 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 20:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 20:44 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | He said, "You have more syphilis and venereal diseases in the United States, because you have so many Black people and prostitutes." This is what he had on the paper. And I got so mad. One other Black nurse and I said, "Frankie, what do you think about it?" She said, "I think it's a shame." I said, "Let's ask for an appointment and go and talk with him." Oh yeah. | 20:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh yes. | 21:13 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | So we kept asking for an appointment. We never did get it. I said, "When I catch him, when school is dismissed, I'm going in his office and having a sit down." And I went. And as soon as I sat down he said, "I want to compliment you. You nurses are sure doing a fine job and we're very proud of you." I said, "I'm happy you feel that way, but I came to talk about this. Now if you're going to compare something, you compare the same thing. Prostitutes is one thing, Black people is something else. And I don't think you're correct in that." | 21:15 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | He said, "You know, you're right, and I'm glad you came in." But he said, "But you know, they segregate Jewish people too." He said, "I can't continue at the University of Michigan." I said, "You can't?" He said, "No, on the basis I'm a Jew, no matter how qualified I am." I said, "I feel sorry for you, but you seem to me you ought to get on and see what you can do about it, because Jews got money and be in politics and all that kind of stuff." | 21:49 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Then he came on with tuberculosis. They had more tuberculosis in the South, because they had Negroes. And I got back at him. I said, "Now you know that's not exactly true." I said, "Do you know they call tuberculosis the White plague at one time? White people was dying with it like flies." He said, "Yes, that's true. That's true." I said, "You know why Black people have more tuberculosis? Because they don't get adequate food. They don't get adequate treatment. And a long time ago, they would take some of these rich people and put them out in a cabin and put a Black person out to nurse them with no protection. Did you know that? Then he got it and he brought it to his family." | 22:18 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | He said, "You're right, you're right. You're right to correct me." Then he got on his wife. His wife said, the maids, the maids was on the bus going to work. And she sat down by a White woman. And the White woman got up. And when she got to work, she was so mad. I said, "I don't see what she fussing about. If she didn't want to sit by her, she didn't want to sit. If she was going to find another seat, that's her business. I wouldn't be bothered about that." But it's prejudice everywhere you go, everywhere you go. | 23:01 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 23:37 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | So I— | 23:37 |
| Felix Armfield | And certainly as a nurse, you encountered it. | 23:44 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh yes, absolutely. | 23:45 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:23:48]— | 23:47 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah, right. | 23:50 |
| Felix Armfield | —people and their healthcare concerns. | 23:52 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. | 23:52 |
| Felix Armfield | That's something that tends to be [indistinct 00:24:18] move into [indistinct 00:24:18]— | 24:02 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That's right. | 24:17 |
| Felix Armfield | —talk about healthcare needs and such. | 24:17 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That's right. | 24:18 |
| Felix Armfield | And you all were right there in that. | 24:18 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And see, looking right at it, right. | 24:18 |
| Felix Armfield | After the war let up, let's talk about what happened here on the home front. After the war is over and you all had helped to nurse a nation during the war effort, when many of the White nurses went off to war, it was in fact nurses like you and Mrs. Lundy who stay here on the home front to continue to care for the concerns of those here. Mrs. Goods, after the war is over, what kind of situations did you encounter? | 24:18 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | When I graduated in '47, the war in full bloom, [indistinct 00:25:04] was only operating, and we decided we were going to work at Flint. Well, we had to work at a hospital. And the hospital had to have be affiliated with Charity and so all things with the segregation and the mistreatment and the disrespect that the Black patients had in common, you did not want to go work there. So everybody in my class when we graduated, we applied to go to Flint. | 25:04 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | My class had done a research study on improving the quality of care by assigning patients to certain areas on the open ward by purchasing equipment that would not transmit illness and disease, which mean we had cultured enamel bedpans, basins. In your time they had enamel, and some of this was chipped. And we proved that if you used the chipped bedpans and urinals, no matter whether you put them, boil them or put them in chemicals, you didn't destroy all the bacteria. So when we wrote up [indistinct 00:26:22] Flint, we talked about stainless steel. And we submitted our findings and presented it in our classroom. Mrs. Miller was sitting in there. She took our whole study to Mr. Stacker, who was the superintendent on Flint Hospital, and showed him what we had done. | 25:37 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Then he told her to retrieve us [indistinct 00:26:50]. Well, there was one floor, the third floor at Flint, which is now [indistinct 00:26:56] it's closed. They assigned my class, four of us, to set up that floor as a model med service floor. So we had to design the paint and the kind of equipment we wanted. They got all the equipment we said we wanted. They did not finish our painting, so we went in there and we finished the painting that they had stopped. My classmates voted for me to be the head nurse. I really hadn't planned on being head nurse. In fact, I had not planned on going into work right away. I wanted to go home and spend some time with my family but they made me feel so bad until I gave in. And I said, "Okay, I will [indistinct 00:27:48]." I said, "Well, I'll [indistinct 00:27:54] be the head nurse on this floor." | 26:46 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | We said we didn't want any of the nursing assistants they had, we wanted to train the ones who were going to be our nursing assistants, the way we want. We had orientation and we trained them. And we opened that third floor at Flint [indistinct 00:28:14] and we placed [indistinct 00:28:19] GYN patients were in a section away from new surgical patients. Critical surgical patients were in a place on the ward near the nurses' station where we could get to them. And we had our standards, our own people. And when we opened that floor, in the summertime you see the teachers were off and the professors were off. They had a list waiting for people to come in for their routine checkups, their elective surgery. Everybody wanted to go on the floor where these new graduates were. | 27:59 |
| Felix Armfield | And when was this? | 28:53 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | This was in '47, either April or May of '47. | 29:00 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 29:02 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | We opened the floor. | 29:04 |
| Felix Armfield | 1947. | 29:07 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. I was the head nurse and we weren't graduating until June, but we had already had a temporary license because we had passed the board. I was the head nurse. Ursala Haywood was days, Elsie Trammel was evenings, Teresa Collins was days with me, and we had one other person who was a relief nurse when any one of us had to go off. She was in the operating room, but she would switch over, come on the floor and relieve one of us. I think that was the first time in history, a hospital in New Orleans ever had a floor that was managed by nurses [indistinct 00:29:46]. We all were working together. | 29:07 |
| Felix Armfield | And you all were Black nurses from Dillard. | 29:46 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. And you see the nurses who were at Flint before we joined the staff, there were two classes that graduated ahead of us. They did not stay, because the nurses there said, "Oh, those graduates who are coming from Dillard, they talk about all this, but they can't cope with the stress and the rigor of working on staff." So we took offense to that. So we had something to prove. So we were there and on that floor. | 29:57 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And it was interesting, there were Black doctors and there were White doctors. And I was the head nurse. I was quiet, but I learned how to talk and do whatever I had to do. And right after [indistinct 00:30:32] the same rules as White doctors. And a lot of times I got in trouble. And Mrs. Hargett, who was a nurse graduate from a diploma program, had been a director at Charity—I mean, at Flint. Doctors, they would write orders and then the head nurse, I had to make a decision whether we wanted to do this, whether it was nursing or whether it was doctoring. I would just say, "Well, Doctor we are not going to do this. You're going to have to ask [indistinct 00:30:51] hospital to do this, because this is not nursing. This is doctoring. And we are not equipped to be doctors." | 30:28 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Well a lot of nurses, whatever the doctor said, because they look up to them as doctors, whatever the doctor said do, whether it was a violation, they did it. But we did not do it. So I was reported to Mrs. Hargett but she understood the philosophy of professional nursing and [indistinct 00:30:51]. She would say, "tell me what the doctor said, be he Black or White." I would go have to tell her why I said it and why I made the decision. And I had reasons. [indistinct 00:32:06] "Why you going down to Mrs. Hargett, is she grooming you to be her assistant?" (laughs) I said, "No, I've been reported by doctor so and so [indistinct 00:32:17]." | 30:48 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And we had private rooms for people that paid, and a huge ward for the people who could not pay. And at that time, doctors then had started a program, a penny a day program. And if people bought into the penny a day program, they could come in to the hospital at a reduced cost [indistinct 00:32:43]. A lot of the patients there were patients that worked on the river front. They had injuries or their families had illnesses and they [indistinct 00:32:55] health benefits. But one of the problems I had, other than the problems I had with the doctors and making these decisions, were the problems of the patients who were in the private rooms. They did not see why they needed to wait when their need was not as serious as the people who were on the ward. So I was reported for that. | 32:12 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | For example, it was a known fact that after three or four days post surgery, you were supposed to begin to do things for yourself. It was a rehab thing. And so one morning, I carried this patient water into the private room, to a very prominent person whose name I will not call. And I said, "Good morning Miss So and So. This is your water to begin to wash all the parts that you can reach. You will begin to do that. And I'm going to take care of the parts you cannot reach, because I have [indistinct 00:34:22]." This lady, soon as I left and came back, she said, "I am paying for you to take complete care of me. And I'm waiting for you to give me my bath." And I said, "I'm sorry, but [indistinct 00:34:27]." | 33:24 |
| Felix Armfield | It sounds like it's a process. I mean, in spite of the fact that you were concerned about [indistinct 00:34:43] with nowhere to go. Mrs. Lundy, how long did you do public— | 34:28 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | How long did I do public health? | 35:04 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:35:04] for? | 35:04 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, about thirty-five years. When I retired, they said that I had done thirty-five years. I probably had done more, but you see, they started off child welfare and I worked part-time there. I mean, it was the same organization, but they changed hands. And then finally, when they went into the city health department, well, this is when my time was considered. And I think I learned a lot, and I was able to get over a lot too, [indistinct 00:35:41] the needs of a lot of people. And sometimes people were delinquent in coming to clinic, finding out why. Sometimes they didn't have the money. Sometimes they didn't have the time. | 35:08 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And we tried to work out a time schedule that was beneficial to them, and that was helpful to them. I think we made a pretty good contribution. One thing I wanted to say before I leave is that, we owe a lot to nurses who were even earlier than me, like Mabel Stompers, Estelle Riddles. Now you know, there was a time when you couldn't get a job if you wasn't registered with the National Nurses Association. You could register with them if you wasn't in your local. In other words, you had to go by steps. You had to be your local and then your state and then finally the national. And if you couldn't get to these, you couldn't get that. And a lot of these states wouldn't hire you if you were not a member of the national. So your hands were tied if you were trying to get from one state to another, 'cause— | 35:54 |
| Felix Armfield | Now did those same type of things apply to White nurses? | 36:59 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah, it applied to everybody. But they weren't handicapped. If they wanted to join their local, they could do it. If they wanted to join the state, they could. But we were Black, and the law was we didn't take Black people. | 37:04 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. Oftentimes you couldn't join your local. | 37:15 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No. | 37:19 |
| Felix Armfield | And certainly if you couldn't get in your local, you definitely weren't in the state. | 37:20 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That's right. | 37:23 |
| Felix Armfield | So therefore, you had no access to the national. | 37:24 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That's right. That's right. And of course— | 37:26 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, did you belong to the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses? | 37:30 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, I don't belong to any of these organizations now, but I did in the beginning. | 37:35 |
| Felix Armfield | Did you? | 37:40 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh yeah. | 37:41 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:37:42]— | 37:41 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah, that was your safety net. I mean, if you wasn't in that, you was just [indistinct 00:37:46] | 37:42 |
| Felix Armfield | Now when you say that was your safety net to belong, to be a member of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, what do you mean? How was it your safety net? | 37:47 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, they were out there fighting. And they were fighting on the national level. You see? | 37:55 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 38:00 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right here in New Orleans, the excuse for us not being members of the local was because that clubhouse was in a White residential section, and they objected— | 38:01 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | [indistinct 00:38:14] graduated. | 38:13 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | —and they objected to Negroes being in that— | 38:15 |
| Felix Armfield | In the neighborhood. | 38:17 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | —in the neighborhood. That was it. Yeah, that was it. So if you didn't get into the local, you wasn't going to get in to the state or the national. But you kept pushing and kept pressing until they finally wrote this thing down. Yes, you can join. And I was a full fledged member when I retired. But a lot of nurses couldn't get in because of that. And those people out there fought. We had annual meetings and national meetings among ourselves, until we [indistinct 00:38:50]. Yeah. | 38:18 |
| Felix Armfield | Were you ever an officer of your local brand of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses? | 38:59 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yes, oh yeah. | 38:59 |
| Felix Armfield | And what office did you have? | 38:59 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, you said did I hold office? No, I didn't hold an office, but I was a member. | 39:06 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Okay. | 39:15 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 39:15 |
| Felix Armfield | What were you about to say? | 39:15 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Estelle Massey Riddles was quite a person. | 39:17 |
| Felix Armfield | Estelle who? | 39:19 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Estelle Massey Riddles. | 39:19 |
| Felix Armfield | Riddles? | 39:19 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 39:20 |
| Felix Armfield | Now was she from here in New Orleans? | 39:22 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, no she was from, I think she was from Chicago. But she represented the whole Negro group. And she didn't mind speaking. And she was intelligent and knew what she was talking about. So we've come along way. And of course, now here come the war. | 39:25 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. Is that when Mrs. Stompers comes into the picture? Did she play a big role, Mavis Stompers? | 39:43 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh yeah. Yes she did. | 39:46 |
| Felix Armfield | She played a big role in getting Black nurses into active positions during World War II. | 39:53 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah, right. | 39:56 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:39:57]. | 39:56 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. Right. | 39:56 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | She was a very close friend of Mrs. Lewal. | 39:56 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 39:56 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Mrs. Massey Riddle and Mrs. Stompers, they [indistinct 00:39:57]. | 39:56 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 39:56 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | That's how I got [indistinct 00:40:09] through them. And Mrs. Miller was a consultant for the national. | 39:56 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | [indistinct 00:40:17]. | 40:12 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | [indistinct 00:40:17]. | 40:12 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | But if Mrs. Miller had been down South, she wouldn't have got into that. I mean, until this was clear— | 40:18 |
| Felix Armfield | If Mrs. Miller had been where? | 40:28 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | If she was—I think she was from Boston. | 40:28 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yeah. | 40:30 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | She was in an area where she could get in, because she could get in her local organization. And she could get in her state organization, so automatically she was in the national. See but the nurses who were in like Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas, all those states, they couldn't get in it because they were not allowed to join the local— | 40:31 |
| Felix Armfield | Their local and state organizations. | 40:55 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. | 40:57 |
| Felix Armfield | But by her being out of Boston, Massachusetts, she was already in, so she was out there fighting for you all. | 40:58 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. | 41:03 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. Mm-hmm. | 41:03 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. | 41:03 |
| Felix Armfield | That's an interesting story, because I [indistinct 00:41:10]— | 41:03 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And I had in mind, I said, "I bet you didn't know that." | 41:14 |
| Felix Armfield | I didn't. I really didn't. | 41:15 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | See a very good nurse could leave Louisiana and go to Chicago or Illinois or someplace like that, couldn't get a job, a permanent job, because she wasn't a member of the national. | 41:17 |
| Felix Armfield | Now did either of you ever consider leaving the South, taking your expertise to the North? | 41:30 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, I never did, for the simple reason that my relatives who reared my brother and me, they were elderly. I didn't feel that I should go so far away from them, that I wouldn't be available when they need me. I worked here after I graduated. But if they called and said some of them were sick, I get to Houston in a couple hours. But if I went across state, that would make a difference. | 41:42 |
| Felix Armfield | I see. | 42:09 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | [indistinct 00:42:17]— | 42:09 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:42:17]— | 42:09 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —because of the way the program was set up. Mrs. Miller always looked for the best educational experiences for her nurses. So a part of my senior year, we [indistinct 00:42:37] this hospital in St. Louis, Palmer Phillips, that was the hospital for Black nurses. | 42:16 |
| Felix Armfield | Palmer? | 42:50 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Palmer Phillips in St. Louis. And it had an all Black staff, doctors and nurses. But we affiliated in psychiatric nursing, and that was the first time we saw a large city hospital with all Black professionals. And when we returned from our affiliation with psychiatric nursing, we were then sent to affiliate with the New Orleans Health Department. And by that time, Mrs. Allie Williams, they named the facility for her now, she's dead, was in charge of the one Black clinic set aside for Black people [indistinct 00:43:30] housing project. | 42:51 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And so when we came back, we were assigned to work with a public health nurse, to learn how they interacted and what skills they needed and what teachings they did with the patients. And then once they orientated us to this, we were sent out alone to do this job. They sat in the offices and we brought back— | 43:33 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:44:01]. | 44:00 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —the results, and we wrote up the patients. We did what they would have done. So that's how I got to know [indistinct 00:44:09] public health. Then we went out [indistinct 00:44:14]. We really thought if we went into the homes of these people and we really saw what they were enduring [indistinct 00:44:17] two years, I went from head nurse to evening supervisor. And then I resigned because I felt it was time for me to go home and have my child. | 44:01 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | They called me back. They wanted [indistinct 00:44:39] director, but I would not accept that position, because they wanted me to displace an older nurse. And this older nurse happened to have been [indistinct 00:44:49]. And I said to this person, "No, I cannot do this. [indistinct 00:44:55]. She's old and she needed this job." [indistinct 00:45:02] the person who had been the coordinator of nursing instruction [indistinct 00:45:10] affiliated at Charity, [indistinct 00:45:15] or whatever else they call them, because she was hired by Dillard to keep an eye on us. She did not teach us, but she was supposed to [indistinct 00:45:24]. So then she [indistinct 00:45:26]. Mrs. Miller sent word to me [indistinct 00:45:37] that they were having difficulty finding somebody to serve as the coordinator for nursing instruction [indistinct 00:45:38]. | 44:36 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And my roommate [indistinct 00:45:43] talk to me, I just thought she wanted a friendly conversation. So I brought in my baby to play in the nursery [indistinct 00:45:55] and a week later she said, [indistinct 00:45:58]. I said, "What?" [indistinct 00:46:01]. She said, "Girl do you know [indistinct 00:46:03]? She wants you to be the coordinator of nursing instruction. You better get over there." So I [indistinct 00:46:12] and I apologized for not calling her. And she sat me down and she said, "We have looked around everywhere to find somebody [indistinct 00:46:22] nursing instruction, and we cannot find—" | 45:37 |
| Felix Armfield | Today is July thirteenth, 1994. I'm Felix Armfield, the interviewer, and I'm about to interview Mrs. Laura Goods and Mrs. Veora Lundy, who are two former Black nurses here in New Orleans. And interestingly enough, we're going to be interviewing them at the famous Dooky Chase. Ms. Goods, could I have you, just for the record, just state your full name? | 0:06 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | My name is Mrs. Laura Jordan Goods. | 0:36 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 0:40 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And Mrs. Lundy, would you do the same? | 0:43 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | I'm Mrs. Veora Hawkins Lundy. | 0:45 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. And you both were former nurses here in New Orleans. With Mrs. Lundy's years on the two of us, Mrs. Goods, why don't we start out with you by just telling how long have you lived here in New Orleans? | 0:47 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, I have lived here about for fifty years now. | 1:09 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Were you born and raised here in New Orleans? | 1:10 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, I was not. I was born in Iberville Parish. But when our parents died, they took us to Houston, Texas and we were reared up in Houston. | 1:13 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. When you say they took us, who took you? | 1:22 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Relatives, my aunt and uncle. | 1:25 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 1:27 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 1:27 |
| Felix Armfield | Then you went to live with your aunt and uncle? | 1:28 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. | 1:28 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, both your parents died at the same time during— | 1:28 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No. No, they died separate times, but they died young. Very young. My brother was a crawling baby and I was a very small, small child. | 1:35 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh really? So was it just you and your brother? | 1:48 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yes. | 1:49 |
| Felix Armfield | You and your brother were the only two children. And then you went to live in Houston, Texas? | 1:49 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | I went to school in Houston, Texas. Completed high school at Jack Yates High School. | 1:54 |
| Felix Armfield | What was that? | 2:00 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Jack Yates High School. | 2:01 |
| Felix Armfield | Spell that for me? | 2:03 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That's in Houston, Texas. | 2:04 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Jack and— | 2:05 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yates is the last name. | 2:05 |
| Felix Armfield | Is that Y-A-T-E-S? | 2:05 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Y-A-T-E-S. He was supposed to be a very famous Negro in Houston. | 2:05 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. What year did you finish high school there at Jack Yates? | 2:05 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That I think it was—That's a long time. I think it was must have been in '30. '30, I imagine, '32. It been a long time. | 2:08 |
| Felix Armfield | Well, if you finished up at Flint-Goodridge Nursing School in '34, we can assume that you must have came out of high school about 1930. | 2:37 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. | 2:45 |
| Felix Armfield | Which is a good rough estimate. Then immediately following high school, did you then migrate on to New Orleans? | 2:48 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, I didn't. When I made my application to Flint-Goodridge Hospital, I was a year too young to enter. So, I was able to work one year and come in the next year. | 2:53 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Now what was too young at the time? | 3:06 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, you had to be eighteen to— | 3:09 |
| Felix Armfield | You weren't eighteen. | 3:09 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | I wasn't eighteen, no. | 3:09 |
| Felix Armfield | So, they would not allow you to come in the program. That interesting. So what did you do in that year's time that you had that was free then? | 3:18 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, I worked for a private family. A young couple who had a young child, but they had a business, and they needed someone to take complete care of their child and that house while they were away. I did this until the day I left. | 3:23 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Now, was this a Black couple or a— | 3:44 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | A very young couple. Yeah. | 3:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Were they a Black or White family? | 3:46 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, they were White. | 3:47 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 3:47 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | They were very kind. | 3:48 |
| Felix Armfield | And that was there in Houston, Texas? | 3:50 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | In Houston, Texas. | 3:53 |
| Felix Armfield | Now when were you born, Mrs. Lundy? | 3:55 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Where was I born? | 3:56 |
| Felix Armfield | When? | 3:58 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | October the thirtieth, 1913. | 4:00 |
| Felix Armfield | October the thirtieth, 1913. | 4:03 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 4:03 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. I know you got some interesting stories today. Well, we're going to get back to that in just a minute. Mrs. Goods, how long have you lived here in New Orleans? | 4:03 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I've lived here in New Orleans since 1927. | 4:18 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, were you born and raised here in New Orleans? | 4:20 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | No, I was born Iberville Parish in Plaquemine, Louisiana. | 4:20 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, the same parish. | 4:20 |
| Felix Armfield | So that's the same parish that Mrs. Lundy. So Iberville Parish. Now, where is this Iberville Parish? | 4:20 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Well, all I know it's the country. I haven't been there over three [indistinct 00:04:24] since I got here. Because I came to New Orleans in June twenty-seventh when my mother died. My father was no longer in the picture. My mother died and my maternal grandparents and took me, and reared me in New Orleans. | 4:24 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Now were you already in New Orleans at the time of 1927? | 5:00 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | No, I was in the country when my mother died. | 5:02 |
| Felix Armfield | In Iberville Parish? | 5:02 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 5:02 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Then you came to New Orleans. | 5:02 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. | 5:02 |
| Felix Armfield | And how old were you at that time? | 5:02 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Seven. | 5:02 |
| Felix Armfield | Seven years old. So basically— | 5:11 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I was born January the first, 1920. | 5:14 |
| Felix Armfield | January 1st. Okay. Save me the trouble of asking. Huh? | 5:20 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 5:23 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. At the very impressionable age of seven years old, you came to New Orleans to live with your aunt and uncle? | 5:26 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Aunt who had two children, she was a divorced person, and my grandmother and grandfather who had proceeded me to the city. My grandfather was Reverend Richard Poor for who was a Baptist minister. You know how Baptist churches send people home when they get old? | 5:35 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 5:51 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | So, they had ended up in New Orleans with their daughter. | 5:52 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. And at that time you came to join them. Did you have any other brothers and sisters? | 5:57 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I'm the only child. | 5:59 |
| Felix Armfield | The only child. Interesting. What were your first impressions of New Orleans in 1927? | 6:01 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | It's very difficult for me to remember, but I was happy because I knew my grandmother when I was smaller, and I had attended church school. I mean church school in the church in Morrisonville, and my grandparent lived in Morrisonville. | 6:09 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Now, was that typical that you would attend school in the church? | 6:29 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 6:34 |
| Felix Armfield | Why was that? Can you tell me a little bit about— | 6:35 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | There were no schools in that area for Blacks. | 6:39 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 6:41 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And we were taught by a cousin whose name was Saphronia Poor. And she taught Sunday school and she taught school in this church. We walked on the levy to the church every day and walked back. Except on the times if I stayed over at my grandparents house. | 6:42 |
| Felix Armfield | So all of your early schooling took place there in that church, and that was the school setting for the children from the surrounding areas that were Black— | 7:00 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. When I came to New Orleans, I entered into AP Rickard School? No, AP Williams. It was in the Red Light District. | 7:19 |
| Felix Armfield | AP— | 7:23 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | AP Williams. | 7:24 |
| Felix Armfield | Williams. | 7:24 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 7:26 |
| Felix Armfield | And it was in the Red Light District. | 7:26 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | That's what they called it then. | 7:26 |
| Felix Armfield | What did you mean? What did the Red Light District signify then? | 7:32 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | There was not supposed to be—They had houses of ill repute and there were lots of Black Doctors living in it. | 7:32 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. So pretty much the Red Light District meant the same thing then that it does today? | 7:32 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. | 7:44 |
| Felix Armfield | In the Red Light District. | 7:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And my church that I attended was right around the corner from my school. | 7:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Church you attended, was right around the corner from the school. Now you were in fact a Baptist family? | 7:51 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I came out of a Baptist family, but mine had joined Westlake Episcopal Methodist Church. So, I entered into Westlake. | 7:56 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Now have you remained an Episcopal? | 8:03 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I remained a Methodist. | 8:09 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 8:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | All my life. So when I married, I left Westlake and married into Grace United Methodist Church. That's where I still am. | 8:13 |
| Felix Armfield | Interesting. Now, what kinds of things did your aunt and uncle do? | 8:22 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | My Aunt— | 8:24 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh, I keep saying Uncle. What kind of things did your Aunt do? | 8:25 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | My Aunt worked in the Dietary Department at Charity Hospital. She was a cook. | 8:28 |
| Felix Armfield | This is in 1927? | 8:38 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | 1927. And she moved from being a cook, and then there were times when she cleaned up the clinic, maybe she was doing both of these things. | 8:42 |
| Felix Armfield | So was that basically the only job opportunities that would've been available to her as a Black woman at Charity? | 8:49 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 8:55 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Was— | 8:55 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And strangely enough, I lived on Robertson Street, South Robertson and I could see Charity Hospital, which was run by the Whites and educated Whites to become nurses. But I could also look down the street on Robinson Street and see Flint-Goodridge Hospital, which was in a two story building that was teaching Black nurses. | 8:55 |
| Felix Armfield | Interesting. | 9:27 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And I spent— Every morning I would run out there just to see, because they would march. You know the way they going? | 9:29 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 9:35 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I was see the ones from Flat coming out the side or around the street, march around the doors to the front of the building. I decided at a very early age I wanted to be a nurse. | 9:35 |
| Felix Armfield | So, that made an impression on you? | 9:46 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 9:49 |
| Felix Armfield | To see the uniform Black women doing what appeared to be a very uniform regimented, kind of, task. | 9:54 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. And being the oldest girl in that family, because three years later another Aunt died and she left three children. So this family inherited three more of us. | 9:59 |
| Felix Armfield | So the family was constantly growing? | 10:11 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. | 10:13 |
| Felix Armfield | Now let me ask you quick question before we move back to Mrs. Lundy. At that time in 1927, that you said that your was working for Charity as a Dietician— | 10:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And a cook. | 10:27 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. And doing some domestic— | 10:27 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Cleaning the place. | 10:27 |
| Felix Armfield | —kinds of work down at Charity, were Blacks doing any other kinds of things at Charity Hospital? | 10:38 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | No. | 10:43 |
| Felix Armfield | Now Charity Hospital was the White hospital. | 10:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | It was the County hospital. | 10:46 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | State. | 10:48 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | It's the State run hospital, but it was roomed, and everybody who found a positions that were non-menial were White people. So, the Black people were the people who cleaned up and did the cooking and things like that. | 10:49 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Now at this time, does Charity care for the needs of the Black healthcare, concerns of the Black community? | 11:06 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. And Mrs. Lundy was probably part of that. Yeah. They took care of, they were clinics we went to and then would—The hospitals were divided down the middle Blacks go one way and Whites go the other way. | 11:14 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. But there were no Black Doctors? | 11:28 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Oh no! | 11:29 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No. That's much too early. | 11:29 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh. | 11:29 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | They didn't get Black Doctors until I became a teacher there. I went there as a student, so I dealing affiliating there. There were no Black people who were teachers or Doctors or anything. At Charity then, the Blacks were orderlies and the people who scrubbed and cleaned and work in the kitchen down in the basement. You know that's— | 11:36 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 12:01 |
| Felix Armfield | Mrs. Lundy? | 12:01 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yes. | 12:01 |
| Felix Armfield | Well, tell me a little bit about what it was growing up in Houston, Texas before we get to New Orleans. | 12:05 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, Houston is a segregated state, but Texas is wide open. | 12:13 |
| Felix Armfield | So Houston, there was segregation also? | 12:17 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh yeah. | 12:20 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 12:20 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Very much so. | 12:20 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. No need to think otherwise, huh? | 12:24 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | They had oil fields and some agriculture and things like that, and lumbering was really the main jobs for men. They paid well, and my Uncle was a hard worker, and my Aunt stayed home to take care of the house. So life was pretty nice in Houston. At that time, new Houston was almost just like a big country town. They didn't have a lot of rent houses. Most people had their own homes there, and historically they have always had good schools. So, we were very fortunate to get in school in Houston. But before we went to Houston, I went to another a church school, Second Baptist's. | 12:25 |
| Felix Armfield | So you too got church schooled? | 13:18 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. And I mean they were strict. You had to— | 13:19 |
| Felix Armfield | Tell us a little bit about that. | 13:22 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Beg your pardon? | 13:22 |
| Felix Armfield | Tell us a little bit about— | 13:22 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | We learned the ten commandments in the school. At that time when they called for Math, it was learning the tables and all—In other words, we learned basic things in that school. So, I think I went to school one year here when I got to a regular school. Thom La Forn, we didn't go there long because— | 13:27 |
| Felix Armfield | What was the name of it? | 13:50 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Thom La Forn. | 13:51 |
| Felix Armfield | Tom— | 13:51 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah, T-H-O-M L-A F-O-R-N. Thom La Forn. | 13:54 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Once you came to New Orleans— | 14:01 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And that was public school. Beg your pardon? | 14:03 |
| Felix Armfield | That was once you came to New Orleans? | 14:06 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yes. You see, I got my basic training in this church school. So I was about fourth or fifth grade when I went to Thom La Forn. See? I didn't go there very long when I had an Aunt who was very bossy and who was very determined. Part of the family didn't want her to have us. She would determine she was going to have—because my mother was her favorite sister. So, she came to New Orleans to visit and ask if she could come back and bring us on a vacation at my grandmother's. Incidentally, she was my step-grandmother, which was no relation to—She said, yes. | 14:08 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | So she picked us up and brought us to Houston. We were there about, I guess, a month when my grandfather wrote and told her to bring us back. She said it was too short a time for her to bring us back. So he waited a while and he wrote back and said, "Be sure to bring those children." She wrote back and said, "I have no money to bring the children back and if—" | 14:49 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh my goodness. | 15:14 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | "—and if you want them, come and get them." Well, she was the bossy type and they didn't push her around. So grandfather didn't, never came after, but he got a lawyer to write to my Aunt and tell her if she didn't bring us back, she was going to be charged with kidnapping. Now my Aunt wasn't educated. She said, "I went to Uncle Anthony's house and picked those children up, and they brought us to the station. And those are my dead sister's children. I want them educated and I am not bringing them back, and you can't charge me with kidnapping." You would have really have to know my Aunt to appreciate it. She meant business. Of course, my Uncle was right behind whatever she decided. So they quit worrying her, and so we grew up in Houston. | 15:15 |
| Felix Armfield | Now were you and your brother concerned with going back to your— | 16:08 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, indeed not by any means. | 16:10 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh, okay. So you were very content with here in New Orleans? | 16:12 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Happy as we could be. | 16:18 |
| Felix Armfield | Really? So your Aunt, in spite of the fact that she was bossy, she really loved and cared for you and your brother. | 16:19 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Absolutely. And you know she— | 16:24 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, did she have children of her own? | 16:25 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | But they were adults. Her children was grown and we were— | 16:27 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 16:30 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | My mother was the younger sister, so we were only little children. So, my Aunt stuck to her guns and we stayed in Houston until we got ready to go to college. I came to New Orleans. | 16:30 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh, you stayed in Houston? Not— Okay. Now Thom La Forn, was that in Houston? | 16:43 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No. Thom La Forn was right here in New Orleans. That's when they first brought us to New Orleans. We were little children then. | 16:48 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 16:54 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | In other words from Iberville Parish to New Orleans, and I think I must have about third, second or third grade when my Aunt came and got us. And then we stayed here a while and then we went on to Houston. | 16:55 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh, so your Aunt was in Houston? | 17:11 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yes. | 17:14 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh, okay. I was thinking your grandfather was the one that was in— | 17:14 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, no. My grandfather was here in New Orleans, and when she came to get us on a vacation and she said she knew in her heart she wasn't going to bring us back. She knew that. Like I said, my Uncle was right behind her whatever she wanted to do. | 17:17 |
| Felix Armfield | Well, it sounds like she was very concerned with your education. | 17:33 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yes, she was. She said— | 17:36 |
| Felix Armfield | Is that to say that you had a better chance of obtaining better education in Houston— | 17:38 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, by— | 17:42 |
| Felix Armfield | —than you did in New Orleans? | 17:42 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | By all means. By all means. Because everything they offered in high school, they had it in the high school it was in Houston, Black and White. The Sciences and what's—I guess you call Physical Education, all the Math, all the English that you needed at that time, they had it to offer. Their teachers had to have degrees before they could teach in the school. There was no second thing is what you call it? | 17:43 |
| Felix Armfield | Normal. | 18:07 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Normal. Yeah, they didn't have that. You had to get a college education. So they were well trained teachers. | 18:11 |
| Felix Armfield | Good. | 18:18 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And then that was an oil state, they had a lot of money and they could invest from good schools. | 18:19 |
| Felix Armfield | Pour more money into Education. | 18:21 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 18:22 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, when did you first obtain your interest in becoming a nurse? Did you know all along you wanted to be a nurse? | 18:22 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Almost like Laura. Going to Yates High School. We passed the Negro hospital, it was the very hospital. | 18:38 |
| Felix Armfield | What was the Negro hospital? | 18:42 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | But there—Beg your pardon? | 18:44 |
| Felix Armfield | What was the name of the Negro hospital there in Houston? | 18:45 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, just Houston Negro Hospital. | 18:48 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh, it was—Houston Negro. Okay. | 18:49 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 18:54 |
| Felix Armfield | Go ahead. | 18:54 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | There was a nurse named Ms. Bright and she was in charge of the hospital and she was a tall, stately woman. She wore this white uniform and this navy blue cape turned back with the red showing on it. It was just impressive. I said to myself, I said, "I would like to be like her. I really would be—" And then they had sent School nurses in to check the children and all. I said, "That's the job for me if I ever finish high school." This is why I went into Nursing. | 18:56 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | I didn't regret it except the time we'd be working twelve hours, and like when the patients started dying, they would send us to sit with them and all that sort of stuff. But I hung in there. My Aunt thought—She kind of felt that I wasn't happy. She said, "Now if you want to, you can come home anytime you get ready." I said, "Okay, but I'm going to stick it out." Then at that time they gave, I think after your junior year, they gave you a stipend. | 19:27 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 19:57 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. So that really, your last year didn't cost you anything if you were satisfactory. | 19:59 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh, good. Interesting. Mrs.— | 20:12 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Goods. | 20:12 |
| Felix Armfield | —Goods, where do you finish your high school training here in New Orleans? | 20:14 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | From A.P. Williams I went on to Hoffman Jr. High. | 20:22 |
| Felix Armfield | Hoffman? | 20:28 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. To J.W. Hoffman. | 20:29 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, spell Hoffman. | 20:33 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | H-O-F-F-M-A-N. | 20:33 |
| Felix Armfield | N? | 20:33 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Mm-hmm. | 20:33 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, is that where you went to high school? | 20:36 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | That's where I went to junior high school. I was walking, I don't know how many miles, but I was walking from 2310 Iberville Street all the way up, it's on South Claiborne Street just to [indistinct 00:20:54] school. I didn't have seven cents to ride the transit. Just like when I was going to AP Williams, I didn't have money to buy lunch. My grandmother with fried bread, or whatever we had, and that's what we had for lunch. Strangely enough, people who had money to buy lunch were fighting for our lunch, and we would switch lunches. | 20:41 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Like Lundy, when I was in elementary school, when I entered AP Williams I was in third grade. Then when I got into seventh grade, there was a teacher there by the name of Ms. Pearson who saw something in me and took a special interest in me. At that time, teachers were not married. They were old maids. But she was very stately with a long black dress and her hair in a bun, and a stick in her hand. Which she used to knock you whenever you were out of line— | 21:09 |
| Felix Armfield | Discipline you or— | 21:49 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —Or whatever you were doing. Then she wanted to skip me, but I cried and didn't want to leave my class. So my second time a went for my class, and then I went to Hopkins School. From Hopkins school, I think I stayed there two or three years, I went on to McDonald 35, which was the only senior high school for Blacks in the state, in the city. | 21:55 |
| Felix Armfield | In the City of New Orleans? | 22:12 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. When I got there, I was placed, they had General Education and College Education. So they put me in a college track. | 22:14 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. So they were prepping you for college all along? | 22:23 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. I graduated from that school in 1937. | 22:28 |
| Felix Armfield | Graduated from McDonogh 35 in 1937. Okay. Following having graduated in 1937, do you know then that you're going to go on off and obtain Nursing degree? | 22:32 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | During the time I was going to junior high school, at the 37. I continued to say, "I'm going to be a nurse." But then I ended up working evenings and weekends at a Ms. Malone San's boarding house on— | 22:50 |
| Felix Armfield | Ms. Malone San? | 23:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 23:15 |
| Felix Armfield | Would you spell that? | 23:16 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | M-A-L— | 23:16 |
| Felix Armfield | M-A? | 23:16 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | L. Malone—L-O-N S-A-N. I think I have it right because it was years ago. | 23:18 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:23:19]. | 23:18 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | My chores included, on weekends I did the washing for all of the people who lived in the house. During the evenings, and sometimes on the weekends, I had to clean the rooms. It was something like 20 rooms. Her boarding house was there for the young White Graduates from Charity Hospital. | 23:21 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, which White Graduates? | 23:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | From Charity Hospital. | 23:45 |
| Felix Armfield | I mean Doctors or nurses? | 23:45 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Nursing. nurses. It was a nursing boarding house for these girls who graduated. Upon graduating, they moved into this house, because it was close to Charity and it was reasonable— | 23:50 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 24:02 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I always said I wanted to be a nurse, so I used to put on their uniform, and I would clean up there, and wear their shoes. | 24:03 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 24:09 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | On my floor we put on this. They laughed when I said I wanted to be a nurse. | 24:09 |
| Felix Armfield | They laughed? | 24:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 24:13 |
| Felix Armfield | As to belittle? | 24:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Belittling me. | 24:13 |
| Felix Armfield | All right. | 24:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I had to say, "Well, where are you going to be a nurse?" Because, by that time Flint-Goodridge Hospital had closed. | 24:21 |
| Felix Armfield | Now what year is this? Is this like 1937? | 24:27 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | This was like 1930, I was thirteen years old when I started this. I did this until I graduated. Okay. So that must have been 1933 at some point. | 24:35 |
| Felix Armfield | And Flint-Goodridge had closed it's doors at that time? | 24:39 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. | 24:47 |
| Felix Armfield | But what kind of proper healthcare is being offered here in the City of New Orleans to Black people? | 24:47 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | People were going to Charity. The people who went to Flint were usually the people who had some money to pay for the service. | 24:53 |
| Felix Armfield | But Flint-Goodridge were clearly a Black establishment? | 25:02 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 25:05 |
| Felix Armfield | There were Black Doctors and Black nurses— | 25:06 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | They had Black Doctors— | 25:06 |
| Felix Armfield | —and Black Administrators. | 25:06 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —and nurses. No, the Administrators were White and they had White Doctors on the staff. | 25:12 |
| Felix Armfield | Right. Okay. The story needs to be told. | 25:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. I was getting five dollars a week. | 25:14 |
| Felix Armfield | For— | 25:14 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | For all that work. | 25:14 |
| Felix Armfield | Cleaning that boarding house? | 25:26 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yeah. But at that time, that was a lot of money. | 25:28 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 25:28 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | It helped me buy clothes— | 25:31 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 25:32 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —shoes to go to school. Because up until that time, for a minute the clothes I wore, which turned out to be good clothes, were given to me by White families who lived in the streets behind us. I got this stuff hand me down from— | 25:33 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, what area of town are you living in? | 25:47 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I was living— | 25:48 |
| Felix Armfield | What ward was it? | 25:48 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —two blocks off Canal Street. I don't remember the ward, but it's two blocks off Canal Street. | 25:52 |
| Felix Armfield | So, you were in the uptown? | 25:55 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I was in—When you below Canal Street, you fall downtown. | 25:57 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay, so you were below— | 26:05 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 26:05 |
| Felix Armfield | So, you were downtown. | 26:05 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | The 23rd hundred block of Iberville Street. | 26:05 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 26:05 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And Iberville Street, was one block from Canal Street. | 26:05 |
| Felix Armfield | So, you were down town? | 26:14 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Mm-hmm. | 26:14 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. You were saying that you would dress up in the White Student nurses, uniforms and shoes and things— | 26:14 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | While I cleaned. | 26:23 |
| Felix Armfield | And you would tell them that you wanted to be a nurse? | 26:23 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 26:23 |
| Felix Armfield | And they would laugh at you. What kind of conversations was spark from those incidents? | 26:27 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | They would ask me what I wanted to be, and I would tell them. There were lot of them, they had [indistinct 00:26:42] from room to room. They were in their rooms at night the keys were in. They would just say, "Oh really, you want to be a nurse?" And they just laugh. Then some of them were kind, so kind to me. Some of them would just create extra things for me to do. | 26:35 |
| Felix Armfield | Really? | 27:08 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Mm-hmm. | 27:08 |
| Felix Armfield | This raises all kinds of questions in my mind for the healthcare concern of the Black community here in New Orleans. Mrs. Lundy, when you initially decided that you wanted to be a nurse, did that concern of—The healthcare concerns specifically of the black community, was that one of your concerns, one of your specific interests? | 27:09 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, specifically I wanted to be a nurse. I mean, this was my concern. I didn't know the need because we never were sick. We never went to a hospital, and the people around us were all right. But, to me this was a great promotion to become a nurse. Now, after I became a nurse, I was concerned because I saw the need. I mean— | 27:32 |
| Felix Armfield | When did you become a nurse? | 27:58 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | When did I become a nurse? | 28:00 |
| Felix Armfield | Yes. | 28:02 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | In 1934. | 28:02 |
| Felix Armfield | 1934? | 28:02 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 28:05 |
| Felix Armfield | Where did you get that degree that gave you the authority to be a nurse? | 28:05 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | What'd you say? | 28:10 |
| Felix Armfield | Where did you get the degree? Where did you get— | 28:11 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right here in New—I finished from Flint-Goodridge School of Nursing. | 28:19 |
| Felix Armfield | Finished from what was called the Flint-Goodridge School of Nursing. | 28:20 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Flint-Goodridge School of Nursing of Dillard University. | 28:20 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay, so it was an extension. | 28:22 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. But it wasn't a degree program at that time. It was this three year— | 28:23 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Diploma. | 28:30 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | —diploma. Yeah. | 28:31 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. But you still were consider a nurse once you were finished? | 28:32 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, yes. Yeah. | 28:36 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | You passed the Board? | 28:37 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh yeah. | 28:37 |
| Felix Armfield | Oh yeah. | 28:39 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Look, I ain't bragging, but I was number one. | 28:39 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. You passed number one at— | 28:39 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | In other words, I made the highest mark in the State Board at that time. This is what I'm saying. | 28:50 |
| Felix Armfield | Was that Black or White? | 28:55 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Black and White. Everybody was taking the State Board the same time. | 28:56 |
| Felix Armfield | Ooh— | 29:02 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | See what I'm talking about? | 29:03 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 29:04 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | But I will say this, a lot of those teachers didn't have degrees, but they were dedicated. They knew what they were doing and you didn't fool them. I imagine some of the things that they offer now at a nursing school, they weren't offering it then. You see? Like—Well no English or anything like that. Your high school English was the English you had until you got out and went to a college or something like that. So it was all related to Nursing. | 29:04 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | That was E. Lines Baker was your Director? | 29:35 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Who? | 29:36 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Was E. Lines Baker your Director? | 29:36 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yes, indeed. Strict as she could be. | 29:38 |
| Felix Armfield | What was her name? | 29:41 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Eola Lines Baker. | 29:42 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | [indistinct 00:29:50]. | 29:43 |
| Felix Armfield | That was the Director who was so strict? | 29:53 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | She was the Director, and believe me she was— | 29:53 |
| Felix Armfield | This was at— | 29:54 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | She was a director. And I don't think she had a degree when she was a Director. You see? | 29:55 |
| Felix Armfield | Mrs. Lundy, you were telling us about whether— | 30:02 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Eola Lines. | 30:06 |
| Felix Armfield | Ms. Baker had a degree, but how strict she was— | 30:11 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yes. | 30:12 |
| Felix Armfield | —there at the program. What were some of the requirements? | 30:13 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, you had to be of good character. I think we had to finish in your second or third list in your high school, and had to be in good health. For the time you had to pay, you have to have the money. Or, something— | 30:18 |
| Felix Armfield | Now what kind of cost was that? | 30:29 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Beg your pardon? | 30:29 |
| Felix Armfield | When you say you had to pay, what was the cost approximately? | 30:30 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | I couldn't really remember. But it was pretty good the first two years. | 30:40 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 30:45 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. But, when I was in nursing The Depression was on. There was a lot of people didn't have the money. | 30:45 |
| Felix Armfield | Now when you were a student? | 30:53 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | When I was a student, yeah. | 30:55 |
| Felix Armfield | The Depression. | 30:56 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 30:57 |
| Felix Armfield | What kinds of complications did that bring about so far as— | 30:57 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, a lot of people just couldn't enter. Sometimes some churches would give scholarships. And incidentally, the background of Flint-Goodridge Hospital is Methodist. | 31:01 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. So it— | 31:13 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | It's a Methodist concern. I don't know where they joined the, what's that? The United Church of Christ? | 31:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 31:20 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | But the Methodist Church established— | 31:21 |
| Felix Armfield | Flint-Goodridge. | 31:24 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Flint-Goodridge. It also established, what they call, New Orleans University and Gilbert Academy. | 31:25 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 31:29 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And Straights Academy. | 31:29 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, Straight was congregation here. Yeah. | 31:32 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. But they all came together to form Dillard University— | 31:35 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. Right. | 31:36 |
| Felix Armfield | Got [indistinct 00:31:36] to that. | 31:36 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 31:40 |
| Felix Armfield | Now when you say that you had to be of good character, was there a character statute that was in place if you wanted to be a Black nurse, or a nurse period? | 31:41 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | A nurse period. You just had to be a good character. In other words, you couldn't be a good timer, couldn't be a gambler. You couldn't run around with people's husbands and boyfriends, and that sort of thing. Why that tickles yourself? What you asked me, didn't you? | 32:00 |
| Felix Armfield | And I'm glad you told me. I'm glad you told me. This group will certainly appreciate— | 32:17 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Who? Honey, let me tell you, if they found out they shipped you home immediately. You couldn't come in there with that kind of cat. | 32:23 |
| Felix Armfield | Now could nurses be married, at the time? | 32:28 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, when we were students, no. And I don't think you could either— | 32:31 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | You couldn't be [indistinct 00:32:37] when I came along, which was '42. | 32:35 |
| Felix Armfield | So okay, now as a student, it's understood you weren't going to be married. | 32:41 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 32:43 |
| Felix Armfield | But once you became a nurse, could you marry? | 32:43 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah, because you had so many outlets. You didn't have to work at any special hospitals. You could work with State or you could work for private hospitals. | 32:46 |
| Felix Armfield | You weren't necessarily like teachers. Teachers weren't supposed to be married— | 32:55 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh no, it wasn't that strict. But they were very strict while you were a student. | 32:58 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Now where did you receive your training? | 33:04 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Where? | 33:04 |
| Felix Armfield | Where did you receive your training? | 33:06 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right here at Flint-Goodridge Hospital of Dillard University. | 33:07 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. So you received the training there at Flint-Goodridge. Could you have gone to Charity to get your training? | 33:07 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, no! That was much too soon. Much too— | 33:14 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, what was too soon? What time—When did you get your training at Flint-Goodridge? | 33:19 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | What time did I get— | 33:19 |
| Felix Armfield | What year? What year? | 33:25 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, I went in '31. I finished in 34. So, that— | 33:26 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Charity was not taking— | 33:31 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No. | 33:34 |
| Felix Armfield | —no Black nurses. | 33:35 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | In fact, there wasn't a school in the South that was taking Black nurses. | 33:35 |
| Felix Armfield | So, basically— | 33:39 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | If— | 33:45 |
| Felix Armfield | —Black hospitals had to be established in order for Black nurses to get their training. | 33:45 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right. Of course, they had to be observed and there was some standards required of them by the State, and— | 33:54 |
| Felix Armfield | So, it was just out of—Completely out of the question? The fact that you were going to go to Charity Hospital to get your training? | 34:05 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well absolutely. Simple as simple. You wouldn't think of it, and I don't think I would've gone at that time even if they offered to me. Because— | 34:11 |
| Felix Armfield | You would've wanted to go over there, huh? | 34:25 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, no. Even after they opened it up, there's some of these people who had died in a little segregation, as an individual, and you just couldn't put up with it. So, I was happy for Flint really. Oh, it was small. They didn't give a degree, but they gave you a chance to be an RN and you could go from there. If you wanted to go to a college and get a degree. | 34:27 |
| Felix Armfield | You actually had an opportunity to nurse the real sick back to health I hope. | 34:53 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, yes! Yeah. We had to learn all the different instruments, and all this different tests, and all that sort of thing. You had to know how to know signs and symptoms, and when to report them and all that kind of thing. You had to know when to get to work. If they said eight o'clock you'd be there at eight. Of course they didn't always say four o'clock and it was four thirty and you were still there, because they needed your help. | 34:58 |
| Felix Armfield | Mrs. Goods, now you finished your schooling when? | 35:24 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | In 1947 from Dillard. Well, there was a two year lapse between my getting out of high school and entering the Nursing School. When I graduated, they had about five or six White diploma programs. | 35:24 |
| Felix Armfield | Keep talking. | 36:02 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Like Mercy Hotel, [indistinct 00:36:05], Southern Baptist—And there's another one, I can't remember the name. I applied to all of those schools. And then I also, I'd been qualified. | 36:02 |
| Felix Armfield | Right? | 36:15 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | They had no picture of me, but on my transcript it said McDonogh 35. They knew that was the only school that Black folks could graduate from, so I was turned down. So after I had boyfriend and I was in love and all of this. I couldn't see my way to get out and go into Nursing School. I had been engaged for a year. Then, I decided since I was being pressured by my then boyfriend to get married, his Father came to see my Grandma and asked to marry me, to allow me to marry him. They agreed. And the first things I can remember saying, "I really don't want to get married if I can't go to Nursing School after I'm married." My father-in-law said, "If you want go to Nursing School then get up there to Nursing School in any city that you can go to. I'll see that you go." | 36:16 |
| Felix Armfield | So he wanted you to marry his son? | 37:20 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. Because, I was a poor girl. Now they had property and everything. But I was a girl who had been grown up the right way, and I lived down the street from him. Okay? So he agreed, and so I got married, of course, at Grace United Methodist Church. While I was waiting, I had my son, my first born— | 37:32 |
| Felix Armfield | And when was this? | 38:26 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | This was in 1939. My son was born in [indistinct 00:38:27]. So I was home still wanting to go to school, but I wasn't working. I was just a young housewife, living in the home with my mother-in-law and father. I read in the Louisiana Weekly, that's the Black paper. | 38:26 |
| Felix Armfield | And Louisiana Weekly was around a long time. | 38:26 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. Said that Goodridge Hospital would be opening up a School of Nursing in September '42. I got so excited, told husband, I told my in-laws, we got in the family truck. I rest my baby. I went to this interview to see Ms. Miller. This lady from Boston had been brought here in the '40s to put together the Nursing Program. | 38:27 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 38:36 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | She had seen my transcript. She'd seen everything in my records papers. I sat area with my husband. She said to me, "Historically, we do not accept married people in the program for Nursing. But, I will give you a chance. I'll accept you on probation. But I want you to know that you will have to abide all rules and regulations of going to our school. You may live in the ward zone, you may live in the community and take your basic core courses for the first two years, courses in education. But when it comes time to go into the clinical, the last two and half years, you must live in the dormitories. [indistinct 00:39:22] I did that. I went home on Fridays at five o'clock and I had to be back in the dormitory at eleven o'clock on Sunday. | 38:40 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That must have been kind of difficult. | 39:36 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | It was, but I wanted it. My husband knew. And the thing about it was twenty-five dollars a quarter, which was a hundred dollars a year. Which my father-in-law paid. But, during the second part, the Cadet Corps came in. Then all of the nurses were being sent to the army and they wanted the new nurses who were graduating to fill the hospital. So the United States Cadet Nursing Corps paid my tuition, and paid for my uniform and books. We had Cadet Corps uniforms, a gray coat with the red epaulets. | 39:36 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 40:14 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Gray skirt, gray hat, and we had pin striped gray and white for the summer. So, a lot. We all inducted into the Cadet Corps with White and Black nurses at the auditorium. | 40:15 |
| Felix Armfield | I think that's an interesting statement made that the woman from Boston said, "Ordinarily we don't accept married people into our Nursing Program." | 40:33 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | That's what she said. | 40:41 |
| Felix Armfield | But, she allowed you to be there yourself. | 40:42 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I was there on probation. So [indistinct 00:40:51]. My curriculum was different because I had two years of education courses. Just like anybody else going to a college who was a freshman in [indistinct 00:41:06]. The only difference in the Nursing students and the regular students, we took our anatomy and physiology with pre-med students. So our course is different. Then in our second year, we were given parts of our uniform. The first time we went to Flint, we had smocks. At first. Patients say, "Oh, look at all of these young women. They're all pregnant." | 40:54 |
| Felix Armfield | So when you say the smocks, you're talking about the maternity top? | 41:30 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 41:30 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 41:30 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. And we did such things as, we gave bed baths, and we took a course in the Nursing Home called nurse [indistinct 00:41:52]. And then went and we worked in the diet kitchen and we served a tray. The next level of uniform, we got a black dress. I mean [indistinct 00:42:01] dresses, and we pinned on white cuffs and a white collar, and a white apron with black stockings and black shoes. We wore that uniform, that kind of uniform, until we finished our fundamental nursing program at Flint-Goodridge. | 41:42 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Then when we left Flint-Goodridge as juniors, we were affiliating at Charity Hospital. Then we went in there, the affiliated, we got our caps. That was added to our uniform, and our bibs. Then we knew we were on our way. It got different things [indistinct 00:42:50]. We didn't have many teachers. I mean when we started out as freshman, there was some seventy-five people. But, by the time we went admitted into the Nursing Program, they were only ten of us. There were only ten people who made it. It was just that tough. Then that good character thing was in there too that Lundy talked about, and Lundy knew Ms. Miller. And she was the personification of a lady, wasn't she? | 42:22 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Oh, she was. | 43:18 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | She was a— | 43:18 |
| Felix Armfield | Now when you say—Who was Ms. Miller? Is that— | 43:18 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Rita E. | 43:18 |
| Felix Armfield | Ms. E. Miller. | 43:18 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Rita E. Miller from Boston. | 43:18 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 43:18 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | We had her— | 43:18 |
| Felix Armfield | Was she the one who told you that, "Ordinarily— | 43:29 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 43:31 |
| Felix Armfield | —we don't accept married women in our program"? | 43:32 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 43:35 |
| Felix Armfield | Now was Ms. Rita Miller, in fact, married herself? | 43:36 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yeah. Well, she married after she retired. | 43:39 |
| Felix Armfield | After she retired? | 43:40 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | After 33 years, she married. | 43:40 |
| Felix Armfield | Really? | 43:40 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yeah. And then the other, I think [indistinct 00:43:51] the other Black teacher was Ms. Anna Sewall, who was a Scientist and knew all the Sciences. Ms. Miller was the Administrator and she knew all the professional courses. Ms. Sewall knew all the clinicals— | 44:00 |
| Felix Armfield | Ms. Sewall. | 44:04 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Anna E. Sewall. | 44:04 |
| Felix Armfield | Spell out that last name. | 44:04 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | S-E-W-A-L-L. | 44:04 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 44:04 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Juliet Lee taught nursing arts. She was [indistinct 00:44:22]. | 44:17 |
| Felix Armfield | Juliet Lee? | 44:22 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Juliet Lee. She was the youngest one, and she was flauty and fiery, but she knew was doing. [indistinct 00:44:27] while major teacher had, later on, Ms. Fredericka Jones joined the faculty and taught me at surg. | 44:25 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. She taught what now? | 44:42 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Medical surgical nursing. | 44:43 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 44:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And the nurse that taught the Nursing application, and the Black Doctors at Flint taught the Medical Clinicians. Okay? So we had— | 44:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Now, who were some of those Black Doctors? | 44:55 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Some of the teaching black Doctors were Dr. Seagray, who was a pediatrician. | 44:56 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 45:14 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Dr. Epps, who was a surgeon. | 45:14 |
| Felix Armfield | You're talking about in the early '40s when you were getting your degree. | 45:14 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. And Dr. Bowers, who taught medicine, was a Harvard Graduate. | 45:14 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Now wasn't there one person, nurse Miller—And who was the gentleman that she was—The two of them sort of worked hand in hand? | 45:17 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Dr. Dent was the president. Dr. Albert W. Dent. He was the one who said, "If we are going to have a Nursing Program, [indistinct 00:45:42] and he had a special feeling for nurses and the roles we played in the healthcare system. He decided that if there was going to be a Nursing Program for Black Women, it was going to be on a campus. It was a [indistinct 00:45:59]. So he went out and searched around for the best Black person to find, and he found Rita Miller and gave her the freedom to recruit the best faculty she could find. So, our faculty came from out of state. They came out of diploma programs. Most of them came out of diploma— | 45:35 |
| Felix Armfield | Take three. Back with Mrs. Goods and Mrs. Lundy. Mrs. Goods, we were talking about the meeting with Ms. Rita Miller when she's about to offer you the job. | 0:07 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Mm-hmm. | 0:18 |
| Felix Armfield | Go on. | 0:18 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And she sat me down she said, "I talked to administrative care already," and I said, "Yes, they would accept a Black person in this position." Or at least they told her they would prefer one who had [indistinct 00:00:36], and they come through their affiliation without creating any problems, and who the founders of [indistinct 00:00:44] affiliated with us. I mean their charity and she said, "The only person I could think of was you." I'm not saying [indistinct 00:00:51] for you and [indistinct 00:00:57]. | 0:24 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 0:56 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | [indistinct 00:01:00] louder and read [indistinct 00:01:01] the scripture. So, I did what she told me and I find it, and [indistinct 00:01:06] about that, but that was a new position. | 1:00 |
| Felix Armfield | So, when did you get this position? | 1:05 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I joined the faculty at Dillard in September of '51. | 1:12 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 1:15 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And I coordinated instruction for students [indistinct 00:01:23]. In that position, I did not have a lot of clout or power to begin with. But, I was documenting the power and authority and the racism, because the head nurses was still over us, and the strange thing about it, about a week before I took it, I got permission from the directors to throw on a GYN to update my skills. And when the first person got [indistinct 00:01:53] the ladies who laughed at me that I was working. [indistinct 00:01:57]. | 1:27 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 1:58 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And she said, "Oh, I don't want you coming to work for me [indistinct 00:02:05]." Right, right. [indistinct 00:02:05] And I said, "No." I said, "This mass has given me permission to come up here and fast and to and let me practice updating my skill." I was telling next week at school [indistinct 00:02:22]. I wish you could have seen that lady's face. | 1:59 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:02:29]. | 2:24 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And three days later when I showed up to continue my skills, she had been transferred. She could not deal with this person who she had laughed at coming back to be in a supervisor position, and her BSN, and she only had it before. She had a problem with that. And it was very difficult in '51, coming the only Black teacher ever assigned in that area with these four Black students, I only had four, and we were assigned to the Color side. | 2:29 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 3:09 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | It was Colored patients giving off the students, because the way our uniforms were different, everybody else was falling right, and do this [indistinct 00:03:27] in this blue dress, white apron, [indistinct 00:03:31] cap, black stockings and shoes. They thought they were aids, [indistinct 00:03:36] but we had to claim to them who we were, and we would always address them as "Mr." And "Mrs." and they didn't know how to accept that, because they had never been called that before. They were always called by their first names, and the doctors would call them girls and boys and they wanted to call you girls and boys, and I told them what's my name? [indistinct 00:04:00] and I was not a girl. | 3:09 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 3:56 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And then they wanted to tell me which hates your [indistinct 00:04:06], and what I was supposed to do and I would not agree with them, so I ended up [indistinct 00:04:14] in the elective office, and they were looking for every reason to throw us out. | 4:02 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 4:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I could still work [indistinct 00:04:20] many days, because I stayed [indistinct 00:04:26] check every room in the area, and see what we got in every eye [indistinct 00:04:33] right. I was even [indistinct 00:04:35], but I just stood my ground, and finally I took over the assignment, the location, and the teaching of all classes for these students, and they recruited other Black graduates from, and work in specialty areas with me, and I did that until I returned when I had a heart attack on [indistinct 00:05:03]. | 4:14 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 5:02 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Because I was taking then to ICU. By this time, I took a leave in '50, '59 to go and get a [indistinct 00:05:14], and I designed the curriculum, for medical surgical [indistinct 00:05:30] the students. And when I came back, I carried all that information. I [indistinct 00:05:30] all of that in my teaching practices. | 5:05 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 5:30 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | So, my students were going into [indistinct 00:05:32] into the other schools in the ICU, because they got backgrounds in the ICU. And I wrote those [indistinct 00:05:42] from the back, but I think and we were then proving our curriculum from four years, and I was already committed and I was just going to say, [indistinct 00:05:52] and I overworked myself, and I ended up in ICU [indistinct 00:05:58]. | 5:30 |
| Felix Armfield | Cool, cool. | 5:58 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | The good thing about it, the ones who took care of me [indistinct 00:06:04], and they took very good care of me. And when I came back, I was pulled out of the charity area, I was placed on the campus as a teacher, so I moved from instructor, to assistant professor, to associate professor, and for two years I was acting chair. | 6:00 |
| Felix Armfield | What's that? | 6:21 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | So, I have a lot of experience [indistinct 00:06:28] Black and I came to stay a year, and then I said I say three, and like my mentor, Ms. Miller, I stayed like that. | 6:26 |
| Felix Armfield | One of [indistinct 00:06:41] Millers. | 6:40 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes, I'm one of the original. We call it, you know [indistinct 00:06:46]? Who came behind us in the room, they are not the original [indistinct 00:06:51] Miller, but I'm one of the originals. | 6:42 |
| Felix Armfield | You one of [indistinct 00:07:06]. | 6:48 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 6:48 |
| Felix Armfield | Great. Well, certainly I could have a [indistinct 00:07:06] of Black women in place, [indistinct 00:07:06] the whole rise of Blackness, and helped get our input in perspective for all of us, and more than likely a little [indistinct 00:07:14] certain stands out in all of us [indistict 00:07:15]. | 7:05 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes, she does. | 7:13 |
| Felix Armfield | You just read that book. | 7:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes, I read that book. | 7:15 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 7:16 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And I get tested by that, because she was my teacher then I just [indistinct 00:07:24], and even when she got married and went to New York, we talked [indistinct 00:07:29] and we sometimes a real time and that. And when she became seriously ill, Ms. Harget, who lives in New Jersey, got in contact with me, and still does, called me and told me Ms. Miller was critically ill, and she communicated to me and when she died, she called me, and I gave it to the rest of the people in the New Orleans area. | 7:20 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | But I owe a lot to a lot of Black nurse. And Miss E. Lines Baker was my church person, and she was, by the time I finished nursing at Dillard, E. Lines had established a school of anesthesia, I was [indistinct 00:08:17] the nurse. It was the first Black school for [indistinct 00:08:24] to go and become anesthetists. She established it with the person who was in charge of anesthesiology at Charity. I can't think of his name, but Black nurses came from all over the South, to [indistinct 00:08:44]. To get into that school | 7:59 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 8:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | So, I know that boy's not in the [indistinct 00:08:48], but E. Lines is a trailblazer. | 8:44 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 8:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | [indistinct 00:08:48] is a trailblazer. This lady was a trailblazer. Because Jonesy was one of the first five nurses to be hired full time at Charity. | 8:47 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:09:10] Why don't we get ready try and wrap up here. Is there anything else that you'd like to say to add to our interview, before we get ready to wrap it up? Before [indistict 00:09:19]. | 9:10 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Not anything, specified, but I think if the grand thing to get these things in perspective, because there have been a lot of nurses who made contributions and especially Estelle Hubbard. I mean she made her contribution almost alone, and she said, "Half of my house, you have a clinic there." | 9:20 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 9:43 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | There was no other excuse. And from her clinics, and clinics all over the City of New Orleans for Black people, I mean for two. | 9:43 |
| Felix Armfield | And when did she open that [indistinct 00:09:55], if you [indistinct 00:09:55] she opened it? | 9:54 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No, it was before my time. It was way before my time. I hadn't finished nursing when she—I mean I had not entered nursing when Ms. Hubbard established that clinic. I'm so sorry we didn't get— | 9:55 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | You have your eyeglasses. Is she in this picture? Ms. Hubbard, because— | 10:09 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Right here. There she is. | 10:13 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Okay. | 10:14 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | That's Estelle Hubbard. | 10:14 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | See, because we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of this sorority, that they established, and these were the charter members. See? I did not know all of those people. | 10:18 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 10:28 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | They were before my time. It's actually when you called— | 10:29 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Estelle Hubbard. | 10:33 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —I wanted to look it. | 10:34 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Estelle Hubbard was way before my time, but she had established herself and— Yeah, here she is. | 10:35 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | That's where the picture came from and you gave them the picture. | 10:50 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. That's only in the— | 10:52 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | We have no longer this sorority, [indistinct 00:10:52]. I started learning for history from these ladies. | 10:52 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Those were some of the old trailblazers. | 10:52 |
| Felix Armfield | There's Mr. [indistinct 00:10:52]. | 10:52 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 10:52 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah, yeah. | 10:52 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay, that was probably before she got married. | 10:52 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 11:27 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah, oh yeah. And here's E. Lines Baker in the middle here. | 11:27 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Mm-hmm. | 11:44 |
| Felix Armfield | And what's her name, E. Lines? | 11:44 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | E. Lines Baker. | 11:44 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And she was well known by the [indistinct 00:11:46]. | 11:45 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 11:46 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And she was the [indistinct 00:11:49]. | 11:46 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. She was widely respected by White and Black doctors, yeah. | 11:50 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 11:54 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. Let me ask just both of you a quick wrap of question. Got to get the paperwork done. Mrs. Lundy. | 12:00 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 12:09 |
| Felix Armfield | Is Jim Crow dead or is Jim Crow alive and well? | 12:10 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | No. It isn't dead, but our spirit isn't dead either. | 12:12 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay, okay. | 12:16 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | See, until you kill the fellow spirit, you can't kill them. | 12:19 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 12:23 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And a whole lot of things they're supposed to do, because they can't do anything else. | 12:24 |
| Felix Armfield | Okay. | 12:28 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | It's just like this politics now. These White people will almost kiss an Negroes foot if they think he got a following. | 12:29 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 12:39 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And that's the way it's going to be. Every time they run some kind of political movement, they used to make it a habit of coming to Mt. Zion, that's my church. Because that's a pretty good size congregation, and lot of people—Mom died in United Methodist Church, yeah. And it got so, we said we can't hardly have church, because the White folks coming. (laughs) But you got to keep the power. You got to keep it, absolutely. | 12:40 |
| Felix Armfield | Mrs. Goods. Was Jim Crow dead or was Jim Crow alive as well? | 13:15 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | No. | 13:21 |
| Felix Armfield | No. | 13:22 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | It's not dead. It is very much alive and well. | 13:23 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 13:27 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I was just at the meeting at the state board yesterday, and I got involved in the meeting. You see my girls won't let me alone, and Alerian, the one who dropped me off— | 13:34 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 13:43 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —was elected, she maneuvered, and got elected chairperson of the legislative committee. But the district nurses [indistinct 00:13:52]. | 13:45 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Mm-hmm. | 13:52 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And so, she's started calling Black nurses, since they gave our list, and she didn't see any Black names on our list, the committee list. So, she called to my former students, and they agreed to come on and one showed up yesterday and it's [indistinct 00:14:13]. Oh, and she called me, and I said, "Well, Alerian, you know that I didn't even renew my rights, since I didn't want to make the mistake of rights and nurses. I wanted to do other things with my life." | 13:55 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | I said, "And I have got a membership in all the nursing [indistinct 00:14:35], so I don't think I'm eligible to be on your committee." She said, "That's why I'm calling you." She said, "Because I called down there, I was given your name, and I asked them that I recruit a person to be on my community who is retired, who has vision, and creative ideas, and [indistinct 00:14:53]," and I said yes. | 14:29 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | So, your name is on here? | 14:56 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And I think [indistinct 00:14:58]. We went into that meeting and you couldn't even imagine how much bias really is in that organization. | 14:59 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 15:08 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Oh, she had gone and had a live research about strategies for helping Core. She had went and got the [indistinct 00:15:21], and had gotten some ideas, and she had written for [indistinct 00:15:26] who wanted to know what the primary issues were regarding a new [indistinct 00:15:31], and he had several copies of this, and then she presented this to these five or six other writers. They said, "Oh, we don't need to be studying that, because we're not the [indistinct 00:15:45]." And we have to sit with them. It doesn't mean really hard [indistinct 00:15:52] discussing the issues that impact our nursing. And the people live there. And she insisted that they give us a copy of the Nurse Practice Act for the State of Louisiana, and that they give information about third party payments, which nurses are trying to get | 15:09 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 16:16 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | —as independent practitioners, they didn't want to deal with that. | 16:17 |
| Felix Armfield | Why? | 16:23 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | You know it's interesting. It is really | 16:23 |
| Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:16:27]. | 16:23 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | So, I am fairly committed to that. I will work with her on that. | 16:27 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | On the Internet, I did. | 16:33 |
| Felix Armfield | What? | 16:33 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | And as long as we are a minority, it ain't going to be dead, and you might as well face it. | 16:36 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And I said to her, "Alerian, if this committee is going to deal honestly with the issues of health practices, and if the Nurse Practice Act was revised and updated, that's what I have to do, because the [indistinct 00:16:55] are the ones have to do it, and I suggest you touch base with the [indistinct 00:17:00] we had in Washington DC." I knew a lot about it, so I asked that she touch base with [inadistinct 00:17:05], who said I'm still in nursing, and [indistinct 00:17:09] back who has been well outside the sorority in you, and get in touch with my former professor at the University of Wisconsin, Sheleila, who is in the [indistinct 00:17:22] Clinton administration, because we are going to have the network and get it, and work it, and present it to them. And we're going to have to to reach out to get Black nurses to come and join this organization, so we can help. | 16:41 |
| Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 17:38 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And so we can go in [indistinct 00:17:39] be the representative, we go the Louisiana legislature, to get people to lobby, or talk individually to our senator to educate him, and we have a lot of Black there. We need to educate them. | 17:38 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah, yeah. Well, I think we're going to bring the report session of the interview to a close. And I'd like to thank both of you. | 17:58 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Well, I'm going to comment | 18:00 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | [indistinct 00:18:09] | 18:08 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | —whenever there is opportunity to push a cause for the Black people on the point. | 18:08 |
| Felix Armfield | Thank you. It was so good to be able to talk to both of you. | 18:11 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And you know, when you push a cause for Black people, you push a cause for everybody, who's unemployed and [indistinct 00:18:22]. | 18:15 |
| Felix Armfield | You push a cause for American people. | 18:22 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Right. | 18:22 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | Yeah. | 18:22 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | And you know that's why we love Cheryl [indistinct 00:18:29], so much She is for real and she is committed to the recent event. | 18:27 |
| Felix Armfield | Yeah. [indistinct 00:18:39] thinning his touch. | 18:35 |
| Veora Hawkins Lundy | You have do it. And I admire you for taking your time and being organized. Lot of people didn't organize for a job, and I admired that. | 18:40 |
| Felix Armfield | Thank you. | 18:51 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | Yes. | 18:52 |
| Felix Armfield | Thank you so much [indistinct 00:18:55]. | 18:52 |
| Laura Jordan Goods | So, we'll adopt you as one of our sons. [indistinct 00:18:57] I have my children, so you will have to be one of my children. And I just wanted to— | 18:55 |
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