Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008
Carolyn Hines Self played in operating rooms and aided nurses with hospital patients as child, and pretending had nothing to do with it.
After Self's father died when she was 6, her mother became a cook at a small hospital in Ohio. Patients lived upstairs, and Self, her brother and mother lived downstairs alongside the dining area.
Although the hospital was sold when World War II broke out, Self's course was set. "I wanted to be a nurse since I was 7 years old," she said.
The childhood experiences led her to a lifelong love with nursing, a career that has garnered her recognition, most recently in the form of a plaque in the Barnesville Area Education Foundation Hall of Fame in Ohio.
A graduate of Barnesville High School, the school system is honoring Self along with other graduates who have gone on to make a notable impact in the world.
Sometimes during visiting hours when her mother was canning or cooking, nurses would come down to the kitchen area and help, Self said.
"They put me on a chair at the end of the steps. I would sit there and listen for the bells."
"My first love is bedside nursing," Self said. "It's not in a bottle, and it's not in a machine."
After-hours, sometimes Self and her brother would sneak through operating rooms. "Especially after surgeries," she said, saying they would sometimes see tonsils or appendixes out on the tables.
Her fascination, and track, was set. Self graduated from the Grant Hospital School of Nursing in 1952, and started her first job in Detroit.
Throughout her career, Self nursed in Michigan, Texas, Guam, California and Rockville, Germantown and Frederick.
At a job in Corpus Cristi, Texas, Self worked as a county school nurse. "My school was 95 percent Hispanic, and 85 percent to 90 percent migrant. It was a challenge sometimes," she said.
In the position, Self was able to obtain eye screenings for the kids, which resulted in the Lions Club giving six to 10 children glasses because they were legally blind.
Self also persuaded her dentist to give toothbrushes.
"One little girl was so excited, she said ÎNow I don't have to use my daddy's toothbrush,'" Self said. "What a big deal a toothbrush was to a child."
"That's the whole reason I am a nurseÛthe hands on nursing care," she said.
Self was also a visiting nurse with the Navy Relief Society, which is like the Red Cross for the Navy, said husband Bill Self.
In Guam, Self made a house call to a mother who said her baby wouldn't nurse. Self, who carried scales in her car, realized the 3-week-old infant wasn't even birth weight, so she packed the two up in her car and took them to the hospital.
The doctor made a call to the father, then asked for the chaplain to baptize the child. "He wasn't sure if he was going to live," she said.
"The baby did survive," she said. "That's my one brownie point for heaven."
Throughout her career, Self usually dressed in white, an anomaly in nursing now.
"White uniform, white hose, white shoes," she said. "Nurses now all wear scrub suits and they look like housekeepers."
Bill Self was in the Navy, and also a nurse. They moved throughout her career and at one point Self was a stay-at-home mom for 20 years before going back into nursing. Self retired in 1998 after working in pediatrics.
On July 5, Self was inducted into the Barnesville Area Education Foundation Hall of Fame.
A plaque with Self's picture listing her achievements will be added to the hall in Barnesville High School.
Self will be one of more than 50 inductees honored with the plaques lining the hallway above lockers, said Gretchen Keylor, who is with the foundation.
"It's basically to recognize the alumni that have gone out and excelled and made their lives better, and have effected not just the Barnesville area, but people nationwide," she said.
Self and her husband, who married in 1951, met while she was in nurses training and he was at Fort Columbus Naval Station. Self, peer pressured by friend's into going to a dance at an enlisted men's club, was sitting at a table Bill Self approached.
"I had to get up my courage," he said.
The two have five children, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The Self's have been residents of Mount Airy for 20 years.
To stay busy in retirement, Self has immersed herself in volunteering with Rockville Presbyterian Church, where she served as chairman of the trustees.
Self also does counted cross-stitch, a hobby she picked up while working at Shady Grove Hospital. "I find it very satisfying to start with a clean cloth and do something," Self said.
"I would show you what I do, but I give it all away."
