My Mom the Cleric

Just before Dad returned from the World War II Pacific Theater, Mom moved to town and found employment as a nurse.  At that time, there were two hospitals in town.  St. Peter's Hospital was the older hospital, and St. John's Hospital was the newer one.  Looking back on it, I realize they were both located within spitting distance of each other and the downtown area.

Both hospitals were Catholic.  I remember going in the main entrance of St. John's and seeing Catholic icons in special display places built into recesses in the walls.  Not long ago, I went to an older home in Helena and noticed a similar display place built into the wall of the home.  It's current owners were extremely puzzled about the purpose of the recessed space in the wall.  The space didn't quite work for a telephone.

Probably because Mom found employment at St. John's Hospital,  my siblings and I were born there.

Mom worked as a nurse at the St. John's maternity ward.  One of her duties was baptizing babies.  The nun supervising the newborn nursery instructed her to baptize the newborn babies.  I was thunderstruck when she told me about this. It seemed out of character with my Mom.  She was not one to do something she didn't believe in.

 "Did you do that?!" I asked.  "Yes, I did,"  She replied.  "It didn't hurt one thing for me to do that, and it made the nuns feel better.  They thought they were saving babies from Hell."

So in the 1940's at St. John's Hospital we had an inactive Mormon woman from Utah performing Catholic baptisms for babies at the hospital.  Life does has some humorous twists and turns.