A little background

So a little background - 

I babysat for my Huliston cousins when I was 12 years old - I suppose I was more company for them 
than a babysitter - Joanie was 10 after all - and life was simpler - no locked doors - no worries about 
someone breaking in. I went on to babysit for the Griffin cousins, neighbors, and I don’t know who else. I was babysitting on Common Street the night the Boston Strangler escaped - I remember being 
terrified that he would find his way to Watertown! 

I think I was a sophomore at St. Pat’s High School when I got a job on Saturdays from 9 to 2 
collecting money from the Watertown Press paperboys. That was a dream job because I had a 
huge crush on Paul McCaffrey - he went on to become Watertown’s Fire Chief.

The nuns at St. Pat’s High School recommended me for a job after school in the library at Perkins 
School for the Blind when I was a junior. I would walk there after school - then worked there during 
the summer. I used to put the Braille books away in the stacks or wrap those big books to be 
shipped to someone’s home. I lost a lot of sympathy for the blind when the teenage students used 
to shut the lights off in the basement when I was down there stocking books - they chased me 
around in the dark. I guess that put me on a somewhat level playing field with them.

I became a nurse’s aide at Waltham Hospital as soon as I graduated high school - I remember 
shaking down a handful of glass thermometers and accidently hitting them on the metal counter - 
they shattered of course, and there was mercury everywhere!! We just swept it up and put the glass and the mercury in the trash - today you would need a Haz Mat team - actually, do they still make 
glass thermometers? I worked there most of the summer until I developed mononucleosis and was 
sidelined until I started nursing school at BC. I worked at Waltham every weekend, every school 
vacation, and the next summer. 

When I was a junior at BC, I moved over to Sancta Maria Hospital in Cambridge because not only 
could I take blood pressures like I did at Waltham, but Sancta let me change simple dressings. I 
loved the staff at both Waltham and Sancta - we would go out to dinner - Waltham Head Nurse 
Mary McNamara would order me a Dubonnet because I was underage. At Sancta we had 
Christmas parties, birthday parties, any kind of parties. One of the cleaning ladies lived around the 
corner - one day we took turns going to her house for a big Italian dinner. Sancta was a great place to 
work despite Sister Mark telling me that my white uniform was too short or to take the Tootsie 
Roll out of my mouth.

My friend Beth and I had talked about joining the Navy when we were in school, but I wanted to 
take the summer off - after all, I had been working since I was 12! I stayed at Sancta for a year to 
get my med-surg experience. I was put in charge shortly after graduation from BC. A man on the 
unit was having a seizure - it was the first one I had ever seen - I didn’t know what to do. We had 2 
great LPNs from Holy Ghost Nursing School in Cambridge working with us - they jumped right into 
action. I had never really bought that distinction in nursing with the degree nurses above the 
hospital nurse above the LPNs - hospital nurses and LPNs always had more clinical experience 
than I did - didn’t they staff the floors in the hospitals? That day with the seizure made a profound 
impact on me - I knew who should have been in charge - and it wasn’t me. Hospital nurses and 
LPNs had my undying respect from then on.

I left Sancta to have weekends off during the summer - I did some private duty nursing. One patient wassuicidal - she was about my age and lived in those apartments near North Station - “If you lived here, 
you’d be home now.” She spent most of her time in her bedroom - I wasn’t allowed to knock or enter it.So I watched TV with 2 crazy Siamese cats racing around the apartment until the patient 
was ready to walk to Newbury Street to get something to eat or to shop. I remember having 
Gazpacho soup with her or was it borscht? I had never had it before and probably never had it 
since.

That fall I gave up private duty to take a job at Winchester Visiting Nurses. I loved that job! We had a 
contract with the town to do school nursing in the morning - I was assigned the Muraco School. I 
remember checking classes for lice - I had never known anyone with lice - had never seen a louse - had no idea what I was looking for! Then I would visit mostly elderly patients in that same area - we had no home health aides in those days so the nurses gave baths. I had one elderly Italian couple - the husband had the heat on at 85 degrees in the middle of summer so his wife did not get a chill. I would be a ball 
of sweat when I left there. In the later afternoon I would visit the new mothers - the VNA had a contract with the Winchester Board of Health. So sometimes I would visit the kids at school, see their 
grandparents after that, then visit their mothers in the afternoon! It was a great job!

Winchester merged with Arlington and Lexington VNAs so they could all survive. I left at some point 
to return to med-surg nursing - I felt like I was stale - I needed to get back into the hospital. So I went 
back to St. Elizabeth’s - we had done some of our med-surg training there. I was assigned to a 
medical floor in the new Medeiros building. I was still learning - I had never worked with trachs for 
instance. 

At some point I went back to the VNA - I was working at Oyster River Home Heath Agency in 
Durham, NH. It was rural back then - I loved that job - I loved being out in the country on the farms - 
the people were down to earth. 

I also later worked at Lynn VNA - I had the best hours!! I worked 10 am to 6 pm - I was able to go out 
to the pubs in Boston with my friends at night and didn’t have to crawl out of bed too early - I missed 
the rush hour traffic in both directions. I left that job during the energy crisis when I ran out of gas twice - we could only get gas on an odd or even day - I ran out and couldn’t get home.

I went to the Watertown-Belmont VNA then - close to home! I loved working in east Watertown - I met a diverse culture of Armenians, Greeks, some Italians - remember this was in 1980. I had gone to St. 
Pat’s - we were all mostly Irish and Italian descent. I don’t remember seeing a black person in 
Watertown in those years - so the East End was very exotic to me. I tried all kinds of foods - I loved the Challah bread. I learned about the Armenian Genocide. 

I left there when I had Danno - I took some time off. I think I went back to St. E’s sometime around this time - my friend Julie was working in Human Resources and got me a job. I loved the variety - I was 
working in the Employee Health Center one day, and interviewing nurses for open positions in the 
evenings another day. My childhood friend Alice Nelligan was working at St. John of God in Brighton and suggested I apply there. I started working 11 pm to 7 am three nights weekly. I became part time 
night supervisor. I remember I would be falling asleep in the morning after work while watching 
Danno. Sometimes I was too exhausted to drop him off at Nancy Huliston/Torres day care. Those 2 or 3 nights in a row killed me.

I stayed at St. John of God until we left for Ireland - I thought for a vacation - Johnny was thinking 
about staying there.

We did come back almost 3 years later, and I went back to Sancta Maria Hospital - they were looking 
for a part-time 3-11 nurse. I stayed there when they changed to a skilled nursing facility, but eventually I left due to the chaos of the change. I had been working per diem at Maristhill Nursing Home in 
Waltham - so I went there part-time instead of per diem. I think I was there for 12+ years. I met some 
great people there - both staff and residents. I met the grandson of one of those residents at the benefit 
we had for Danno - I remembered him, his mother, and younger brother coming to visit his 
grandmother - his younger brother had cystic fibrosis.

I started working a couple of nights a week private duty for Mrs. Edwin Land - her husband had 
invented the Land camera. They had a big house on Brattle Street in Cambridge. I worked 11-7 and 
filled in 3-11 sometimes. This job helped pay for Danno going to BC.

I had always been the breadwinner - Johnny Murphy did landscaping and received no benefits. So 
I took a job at Fernald State Schoool - it was run by the State of Massachusetts for developmentally 
delayed children - now adults. My friend Gail Shutt worked there and highly recommended it - she said the salary was good and benefits better because they were from the state. So I took the 11-7 position in 
the medical unit. I loved those residents. I would have stayed here except I had to have a hysterectomy, and the lifting got to be too much.

My friend Beth was working at Visiting Nurse and Community Health - previously the Winchester, 
Arlington, Lexington VNA where I had worked before. She said they had an intake nurse position 
available working with her. The Monday thru Friday days clinched it - no weekends, no 3-11s, no 
11-7s. I loved this job too. It was the first time I worked with a computer - thankfully I was able to cop on to it. But a year of so after I started, there were rumblings of financial instability - the agency might 
close. I heard about an Open House at Tufts Health Plan which was in Watertown and had been for 
years. How many times had I passed it by! I went for an interview after work one evening, and they 
called me the next morning with a job offer. I grabbed it! The salary and benefits were so much much 
better than anything I had ever made. And it was Monday through Friday 8:30-5!

I soon began working with Uniformed Services Family Health Plan members - retired military and their spouses plus active duty families - and loved them. And who wouldn't love working from home every day! I was there 15 years last March!

I loved all the jobs that I have had. During the last couple of years, Danno has had his lung transplant, 
and he and Amanda are living in the house they bought in Leominster. Mairead moved to Seattle last 
August for at least a year. Mike stayed in Ireland in September. JB and Tina were planning to move to 
Fort Myers, Florida the day after Christmas. I would be living alone in this house and paying a monthly mortgage for another 15 years - we were old when we bought it! The house needs a lot of work so I 
would need to take a loan to fix it up. 

I have loved every job I have had, but I finally decided to retire and sell the house!! I would spend moretime in Sneem - Johnny Murphy and I had always planned to renovate the old house. So that is what I 
decided to do. So I resigned Friday, December 27, 2019!