After a career in nursing, Gail recalls her years at Harborview, and the impact of COVID

Gail Stewart (’74) recently retired from a career in nursing. We had a chance to catch up as she was unpacking from her move to Spokane. 

Congratulations on your retirement! 

Thank you! 

I wanted to talk a little bit about early days at Overlake, and then life after Overlake, and nursing in particular. Let’s start at the beginning. When did you come to Overlake? 

I came to Overlake in 10th grade, the fall of 1971. Prior to that I was in the Lake Washington School District and I was not doing well. I was sure I would not be admitted, and when (then Head of School) Dean Palmer told me I was in, I was just dumbfounded.  

How many students were in your class at that time? 

Gosh, I think we graduated with 16 students. 

Was it half boys, half girls, or…? 

At first there were just a couple of us girls and then a few more came in the second year I was there.  

So you were actually at the Bel-Red YMCA campus the first year, before the school moved to the Redmond campus? 

Yeah. And I spent the first summer working with faculty and other students to prepare the farm buildings to be classrooms. Did you know it was written up in the Seattle Times Sunday Magazine and there was a big spread? 

Yes! I've actually got a physical copy of that which someone donated from their personal archives. It's just amazing. Many of the early alums from the ‘70s have shared their experiences doing carpentry, painting, insulation, even electrical wiring. 

Did you have any particular teachers who were really a good fit for you as a student? 

Jack Newton was my total mentor. He taught science. And then I had Dean Palmer for geometry. I was never good at math, but I got an A out of geometry! And of course, Trevor Culley. Scott Litke for history. But Jack was the teacher I felt closest to. 

Did you already have a love of science when you arrived at Overlake? 

I think it is because of Jack that I love science. I took a botany class from him and I've been a member of the Washington Native Plant Society for over 20 years. I'm very involved in that still. And I remember there was a group of four students in botany class at Overlake. We were going out looking for plants to study – this was when we were at the YMCA campus. We went out into the Bellevue wetlands where nothing had been developed. And we got arrested by the police and taken down to headquarters because they thought we were harvesting marijuana! (Laughs) The school came and vouched for us, and it was all kind of an adventure. 

After you graduated where did you go to school? 

I started out with a scholarship to the UW, because I played field hockey, and soccer as a goalie. But then they took the scholarship away, because Title IX hadn't been enacted yet, and I had not made any other plans, because they took it away at the last minute. I went to community college and completed a respiratory therapy program. And then I went back and got my nursing degree. I went back online and did some other stuff later, but I just had an AA degree for a long time.  

Originally, I wanted to be an EMT. I took the training as part of my Senior Project at Overlake, but then I couldn’t go any further with it because I was a woman. Women were shut out of that career for another 10 years after that time. I told myself when I graduated high school, I'd never be a nurse or a waitress. Then when you become a nurse, you become both [laughs], but I've loved my career. I'm glad it worked out that way. 

So, despite being qualified, women couldn’t enter certain professions at that time? A lot of people now don’t realize that in the early 1970s, women didn’t have access to credit in their own name. 

Yeah. When I got divorced, I was dropped from my car insurance company. And the one woman from the insurance company literally told me on the phone, “I don't care what you think of me. This is not a recorded line. You're a divorced woman and you will not be able to make your payments. So we don't want you anywhere.” They dropped me, and I had to try to find new insurance as an uninsured motorist, as a divorced woman with three kids. Before I got divorced, I got all my credit cards in my own name, because I had heard about that happening to people I knew. Things were different then! 

I should circle back to something you said earlier. For contemporary readers, I think it's remarkable to note that in 1974, it was still possible to play field hockey at the University of Washington.  

We did a big push to get field hockey moved to the spring. We took pictures of how muddy we got playing on the old fields at Overlake. And we got the field hockey changed to spring after that!  

If you come across any photos when you are unpacking from your move, I’d love to share them with our readers! Tell me about soccer. 

Peggy Conley and Bill Armstrong were the main coaches I remember. We did pretty well in our league! 

Where did you start nursing? 

Oh, gosh. I started at a little hospital in north Seattle. I can’t remember the name now. It was the only hospital on the West Coast that had an internship program and it was tiny. We’d get a lot of orthopedic surgeries. Actually, we did a little bit of everything. There was a surgical floor and they delivered babies and everything. And then later on it turned into a long-term acute care facility. And then I went to the VA hospital. I had some years working in California, which I enjoyed. Later on, I came back to work at Harborview. 

Harborview was where you just retired from, is that right?  

Yes, Harborview was just solid trauma center craziness, which I love for life. 

I presume the same qualities you need to be a good EMT made you a good trauma center nurse? 

I was the first person to arrive at several accidents before I was a nurse. One time was in a car with (classmates) Stuart Ewing [BB – I don’t see Stuart in VCX?], Leon Knopp (’74) and Chuck Howe (’74). We were driving over to Sun Valley and there was an accident. This car had a six-year-old with a compound fracture in the backseat, blood everywhere. I was there until the medics arrived, providing first aid and comforting the child. 

Can you share some of what it has been like during the pandemic? 

We had one patient early on, sent to us before the outbreak was official. We had him in our ICU and then realized that we had all been exposed to COVID - oh my God. There were about 10 of us that were out for a couple weeks, getting tested, and all of us were feeling sick, but, we all tested negative. And we still don't know whether it was just testing negative or whether there was something else. The antibody tests came later. 

Were you directly working with COVID patients, in addition to that first one? 

I have allergies which were set off because we had to reuse all of our PPE. I was having an allergic reaction to the bleach, which makes me very ill. So, I did work with COVID patients a little bit at first and then it became quite evident that I couldn't deal with the bleached, re-used PPEs. They took me out of the hospital temporarily because PPEs were in such short supply. Eventually I came back and I worked in contact tracing and some other stuff around the hospital and then I helped start the vaccine clinic and helped people get tested.  

I want to underscore something you said. It's significant that the major trauma center in the Pacific Northwest did not have enough PPEs for its own employees and had to reuse PPEs.  

Yeah. And we had several outbreaks related to this. One of them was due to masks that were inferior, not really up to standards, and people had to wear them for their entire shift.   

How long was it before there were enough PPEs for all the employees? 

It took a while, there were persistent shortages because the demand just spiked once it was clear what that we were in a pandemic. 

How did it feel when you received your vaccination? 

It was pretty powerful. I have to admit there were a lot of us that were in tears. We were administering the vaccine to our own colleagues, coworkers – people on the front lines like EMTs and paramedics, police officers. We're all a tight community, especially when you look at a trauma hospital. So it was pretty empowering. 

If you reflect back on your whole career in nursing and the journey itself, is there anything about your Overlake experience that connects to that work, that carried forward into your life? 

Well, the thing about Overlake is that it changed my life because I was not on a very positive track and I became much more self-assured and more positive. I knew that I could succeed. And so that carried through and helped me, especially when I was doing management stuff.  

We honored another public health professional, Cora Nally (’89), as our Distinguished Alumni Award honoree for her work in public health, notably on two tours of duty in West Africa during the Ebola crisis. 

I read that. That was amazing. That's kind of what I wanted to get into, but things weren't as open to me. I thought that was wonderful. I was very impressed by Cora’s work. 

It strikes me that young women now have far more options in their choices of work, both domestically and abroad, which is progress to cheer about. 

Yes, and medicine is a truly diverse profession, and I love that. Medical schools now are full of students from all over the world.  

Thank you for all your years of tending the sick and ill, and for the sacrifices I'm sure you made to be a nurse.  

All right. Take care. Thank you.  

Interview by Christian Fulghum (’77)