Adria Dunn and Irene Dunn

[00:03] ADRIA DUNN: My name is Adria Dunn. I am 52 years old. The date is February 10, 2023. I am in El Paso, Texas. Mother, Irene Dunn.

[00:18] IRENE DUNN: My name is Doctor Irene Dunn. I'm 74 years old. The date is February 10, 2023. I'm in El Paso, Texas, and I'm here with my daughter, Adria Dunn.

[00:36] ADRIA DUNN: So, mom, I'm so excited to do this story core with you. Tell me where you were born.

[00:44] IRENE DUNN: I was born in New York City, in Manhattan, lived there until I married my husband back in 1965. So it's a lot of years ago. And we stayed in New York City, living in Manhattan, because originally I was raised in the Bronx. We stayed in New York City, living in Manhattan, until he was offered a position in El Paso, Texas, and being offered that position, at the time, I was in school getting my registered nursing credentials, and so I stayed there with the three children until we eventually moved down to El Paso to join my husband, their father.

[01:40] ADRIA DUNN: Okay, so I never got to know your parents because they both passed before I was born. But can you tell me something about them?

[01:50] IRENE DUNN: They were wonderful people. My biological mother had become pregnant and did not want another child, so she asked them if they were willing to take this child, and they did. I had to stay in the hospital for a while because I was born at the seven month gestation. And so once I got enough weight on me, I was able to be released from the hospital and given to this husband and wife that wanted to have children, but for whatever reason, couldn't conceive children. And when I came, I was the joy of their life. So I was very blessed in having parents like that. Good.

[02:44] ADRIA DUNN: And how were they when it came to your education? Elementary school, junior high, I guess back then, were they supportive?

[02:53] IRENE DUNN: They were as supportive as they could be. My mother went to the third grade, and my father went to the 8th grade. So education is not something that was paramount in their life. The fact that I could grow up, be in school, and finish school was wonderful to them. But my father didn't live long enough to see me graduate high school. He died a year before I graduated high school. And going to high school, I was able to get into education that allowed me to become what's called sometimes a licensed practical nurse, sometimes licensed vocational nurse. But I was able to come out of high school with a wonderful trade, and I would never change it for anything in the world.

[03:55] ADRIA DUNN: Okay, so when you graduated high school, I know since then you've gone really far in education. At the time you were graduating, were you thinking, that's the best you're going to be. I'll just be this nurse for the rest of my life.

[04:08] IRENE DUNN: At the time I graduated, because I was an only child, I did not know any different. As I started working in the hospital as an LPN, I found out there were different kind of nurses. So me always wanting to be a nurse was a dream. But now to learn that there are other kind of nurses besides the one that I was doing at the bedside really excited me. So that's when I decided to go to the associate degree program in New York and pick up my registered nursing license.

[04:49] ADRIA DUNN: Okay, so you mentioned getting your associates in New York. I recently found out from you that you started going to school when you moved to El Paso without my dad knowing that you just snuck and started going to school in the daytime when he thought you were home. Sleep since you worked at nights. Can you tell me about that and how he reacted when he found out that's what you were doing?

[05:13] IRENE DUNN: My husband, we come from the era that women don't necessarily work, per se. They can do domestic engineering work, which is being a housekeeper, but something more they didn't. They didn't have the ability to do. So when I found out in New York that there were other kinds of nursing, I started in New York in one of the universities. But once I moved down to El Paso, I looked at the university at the time that was here, and that was Texas tech. Not Texas Tech, but El Paso University. And in going to El Paso University, he was quite upset. He thought, this is the best I could do, was to be the registered nurse. I've already gone and done that, so I shouldn't need to want any more education. So I would go to school. I would sneak and go to school. I don't advise anybody to do that. I advise people to be forthcoming in their marriages and let the partner know that you want to do this. But because being raised by myself and making all my decisions on my own, I just started school, and it took me several years to finish the other part of that associate's degree. It only should have taken two years. It took many more years than that. I had another child. I had gotten an illness. I had several different variables that would stop me from going to school, and I'd have to drop and then start back again. Drop and start back again. So it took me a lot of years, but I was very determined. And when I did finish, I finished in 19. I believe it was 87. I think it could be 77. I don't remember now. I'd have to look on my degree after that. He thought that would be all I would do. But I got in my head, well, if I was able to attain this, I can attain more. So I went back to school and I got a degree, a master's degree in health service management. Went back to greed, I to school and got a degree in registered nursing, went back to school and got a degree in my PhD. I introduced myself as doctor Dunn because I did go back to school and I did obtain all those different degrees. Have I stopped for a little while? How many more would I need, huh?

[08:02] ADRIA DUNN: How many degrees do you have total?

[08:05] IRENE DUNN: I have the associate degree, the bachelor's degree, three master's degree and a PhD.

[08:13] ADRIA DUNN: What are your masters in?

[08:16] IRENE DUNN: One is in just general nursing. One is in health service management. So I could be an administrator in a hospital or a nursing home. And then the other one, I went back to school to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. And your PhD is in critical pedagogy. It's a big term that talks about how do you set up educational arenas in whatever facility you're working in.

[08:49] ADRIA DUNN: Wonderful. Tell me about your children. I have three siblings. You can name everybody.

[08:56] IRENE DUNN: Well, let's start with the oldest. The oldest is Sheila Sherrell Friedman. She is, has several degrees. Like her mother, she's currently deciding to go back to school to become a special ed teacher. So she's finished her first year becoming a special ed teacher, teaches in Illinois. She thought she wouldn't like it because she knows how the children were when she did substitute teaching. But she's finding that there are so many things that her son did not get the benefit of. Her son has attention deficit. And as she's been going through this program, she realizes that all, all the things that her son never got the benefit of because she didn't know about it, she never sought it out and trusted the people who were educating him. The next daughter is Lori Liza Dunn and she is an attorney in Louisiana. She has two offices. Very successful young woman. And she is not married. My oldest child is married, but she's not married. But that doesn't mean that if somebody doesn't sweep her off her feet that she's going to say no. The next child is the one you see here in Storycorp. That's Adria Avis Dunn. This one was my most difficult child because I tried to get her to do everything else but what she is doing, I wanted her to be a pharmacist. I wanted her to be a lawyer. I wanted her to be something. But that is very prestigious, but she, like her mother, was very determined and she became a music person playing violin. She plays in the symphony in our town. She's taught in the public school, both elementary and high school, and she's done that for at least 27 years. And now she is also working on her doctorate degree that was finally pushed into her head by her mother recently. In the last two years, she's gotten herself a position as administrator. So she's no longer in the classroom, but she's currently today in a workshop that is in San Antonio again, teaching teachers how to be better teachers. So she's going to take that to her staff that works under her so she can present this information to them to be a better teacher. She's done so many things. She's taken her children to Hawaii. She's taken her children to New York City twice, once to Carnegie hall and once to Lincoln center. And El Paso is at least 2000 miles away. But she was so good at her profession that she got acknowledged and they brought her up there.

[12:17] ADRIA DUNN: And may I say, my children means my students.

[12:22] IRENE DUNN: Yeah, she does have a son, but he had to live with his mother because she was not only his mother, but she was also his music teacher. So he had to live through that. He's now also on the road to education. He finished high school this past June. And finishing high school, he also obtained an associate degree from the community college. So he's on his way to education also. Then there's my youngest son, only son. He is a wandering star that did a lot of different things when he finally graduated from New Mexico state. And in graduating from New Mexico state, he did not want to stay in El Paso just like the others did not want to stay in El Paso. He moved to various parts of the country, landed in New York City, stayed there for about four or five years, was able to get accepted into a university, University of Kentucky, I believe. Got his master's degree in a music education. No, just plain music. And then he went on and got his doctorate degree in conducting and producing music. And right now he works as an educator in both the college and the elementary in high school. So I am very blessed that I have children that took their mothers pushing and pushing and were able to complete. Everyone has at least a master's, a couple have a doctorate degree, and nothing but the grace of God allowed us to happen that way.

[14:14] ADRIA DUNN: Okay, so in our growing up, at some point you decided, I want to do more for this country. And you decided to join the army reserves.

[14:23] IRENE DUNN: What was that about when I was in high school. I wanted to join the army. I was 17 at the time, and because I was an LPN, I would have gone in as some sort of specialist. But at the time, the military had rules that kept me away from joining. If you were going to be married or were married, you could not join the military. So I lived with that because I knew I was getting married that Christmas, and I married on Christmas day. So people showed up to my wedding, and I moved on. And coming down to El Paso, I met a young lady that was very excited because she joined the reserves as a registered nurse officer, and she never had been in the military, but the army at that time would take you in as a registered nurse, as an officer, second lieutenant, not having any military experience. So I was very excited, but I also had to do some things to lose weight. By that time, I had had the four children and didn't really pay attention to my weight. And they said in order for me to join, I had to be a certain weight. So, you know, I did all the crash diets, I did the exercising. And when I finally got down to that magic number they needed, I was able to lift my hand and swear in that I will defend this country.

[15:53] ADRIA DUNN: Well, with you joining the reserves, you had two other family members that followed you. Can you tell me about that?

[16:00] IRENE DUNN: My husband used to watch me as I came in working nights. My daughter mentioned to you that I work nights, and I work nights for almost 20 years. I would come in, shower, change my clothes, go into my uniform, and go out to my reserve duty on the weekend. And when we had the time that we had to do our two week drill, I had my uniform and I pack and we go. Sometimes we were an evacuation unit, so sometimes we would go on the field. So, you know, we had our, what they call mop four, putting on all our gear, putting on our gas masks, doing training. Sometimes the training was in El Paso, sometimes it was in California or various places, wherever our commander was able to get this hospital unit into. Very seldom did we work in the hospital, but when I did work in the hospital, I worked in intensive care. So I was in ICU, and I took care of all levels of children in the military. I was an ICU nurse on the outside. I worked in intensive care nursery. I worked in pediatric ICU, and then I worked in the ICU itself. So I was well rounded when it came to working in a critical care situation.

[17:28] ADRIA DUNN: So the other two family members that joined with you or after you in.

[17:31] IRENE DUNN: The reserves, I said that my husband was very observant of how I looked in my uniform and how I presented myself. So four years later, he joined and he went in as a first lieutenant because he was a nurse anesthetist. And there was a couple of things that happened during the 1990s. And one of the things was we were activated and we thought we were going to be activated and sent to the local hospital, military hospital here in El Paso. But we did not get activated to that. I got activated to desert storms. So I was sent to Saudi Arabia. My husband was sent to Oklahoma to give anesthesia to get those people that weren't medically ready to come out to war, get them medically ready by having their surgeries. And then he was to go out. My daughter, the lawyer daughter, she wanted to go in. And I said, no, no, no, you wait till you finish your degree, then you can go in as an officer. I have nothing against enlisted, but I felt if you worked all this hard to get something, then you needed to be an officer. So when we came out, because we were there for almost six months, in doing what we needed to do, we were there for almost six months. I was in Saudi, he was in Oklahoma. She was in school. We had to pull her out of school along with the daughter that you see here out of college and pull them home to take care of the son, the only son at that time, he was ten years old. So they went to school in the local university, did what they needed to do to keep up their grades. And when they finished with their grades, Adria went back to Houston University, Laurie went back to Southern University, and she joined the military. She joined as an enlisted person. Now, I was not happy about that because I knew she would not be treated the way she thought she should be treated. Lori is six foot two and she has total alopecia. And I knew that they would criticize her, bully her, and that's exactly what they did. And it wasn't until she asked us to come up to our graduation and wear our uniforms. By then I was a major and my husband was a captain. We wore our uniform. She was able to get her payback she felt she deserved as she walked in between us and all those people that bullied her had to now salute us. So that was her payback. As time went on, she was able to put paperwork in and she was able to get a direct commission to go into the military. We have me as a major. My husband, that was a captain, he stayed in for about twelve years. And Laurie, who's a major, my husband did not retire, but Lori did. She retired with almost. It was 28 years of being in the reserves.

[20:51] ADRIA DUNN: Did you retire?

[20:53] IRENE DUNN: Yes, I retired many years ago and was very proud to serve my country.

[21:01] ADRIA DUNN: Excellent. What are some things that you remember most about your deployment?

[21:06] IRENE DUNN: I was alone. I had been with my mother and father. Then I went into my husband's house, and now I'm all the way out there, and I don't have my children, I don't have my husband. And even though there was all kind of people around, I felt alone.

[21:29] ADRIA DUNN: That's a hard one, being out there alone. But you also mentioned while you were out there that you began to learn to play the keyboard or something like that.

[21:40] IRENE DUNN: I am very active in my church, and I decided, well, since I'm going to be out there, and I had. I was definite I was going to have free time. I packed the keyboard inside my duffel bag. So I took the keyboard out there, and we had church service. And in the church service, we had a chaplain that was preaching the service, and he thought it would be a good idea to have a choir. So I quickly raised my hand and I started the choir. As we were out in Desert Storm, and my husband met up with the rest of the unit. After a while, when they brought us back, and one of the people was singing a song that my husband sung in the church, and he said, how did you learn that song? He said, your wife taught it to us. So even in Desert Storm, I was very faithful to what I believed needed to be done. I came across a minister that I knew there, and we would have church and even baptize people. So I did not give up my faith being away. So that kept me going. That kept me going.

[22:59] ADRIA DUNN: Excellent. Describe the work that you do. Right now.

[23:05] IRENE DUNN: I am retired from working as an educator in the local community college. I taught nursing for 28 years and loved it. Loved it. Taught all the areas that they had at the time. And the last area I was teaching was psychiatric nursing. I told you, I went back to school to become a psychiatric nurse because I had someone that wanted me to teach in their program, and they kind of blackmailed me in a going to their program so I could proper credentials to teach in their program. And I did for a while, but I began to like the area. When I was young in New York City, I worked as a psychiatric nurse, but as an LVN, so the roles are very different. But I learned how to work with the clientele that is in that particular arena, and you can't expect that they will do what you want them to do because they don't see necessarily logic in what you want them to do. For the last ten years or so, I've been working as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and I see children up to from five years old up to older children of 80 something years old. So I see people across the lifespan and I love it. Awesome.

[24:36] ADRIA DUNN: So I was sitting here thinking, for anyone who knows you, if they truly know you, they know that you really love your children and that they're very special in your life. And I know that you do a call out or we call you as often as we can. So we've kind of become like more friends than children. Even though you're quick to give us advice. A lot of quick to give us a lot of advice. Tell me about any memory about your children, something that you would say, oh, this really stands out.

[25:13] IRENE DUNN: In graduation. I told you, I graduated with my doctorate degree and I dedicated my degree to my parents, the mother that finished the third grade and the father that finished the 8th grade. The special thing for me and my children was to be able to see them walk across that stage and obtain. I tell, I tell them all, it's my degree, give me my degree. And, you know, they would fuss and complain about it, but I felt that I, there were things I did wrong. Yes, I admit that, and I do have regrets, but I felt that their accomplishments allowed me to show my parents they did the right thing by taking me, they did the right thing by letting me come into their home and making me a part of their home. And this is the offspring of the person that you raised and loved, so there's nothing special about any of them. When my daughter finished law school, she was to graduate and I was supposed to be graduating with my doctorate degree. And I told my professor, nope, I'm going to go down to my daughter's graduation. And she was not happy about that because she said she's graduated a couple of times. Yes, I said, but this is the first time you've graduated with your law degree, so my degree can wait. And if I never got another degree, I've already accomplished so much that I never thought I could have accomplished. My baby daughter, she came back to El Paso and she graduated. She did not graduate from Houston. She came back to El Paso because now they offered what she wanted and she decided to stay. So I was very proud of her. I feel sorry for her sometimes because there's so many things she could have been doing more, but I think that she made that decision because she felt she was God led to make that decision. My son, he's gone on to do many things. He's not only gotten his doctorate degree in music, he's also gotten a degree in divinity, and he's considering going to another school for Md. And I told him, okay, that's enough. That's enough. But it's hard for him to listen to me to say that's enough, when I've done so much myself. My oldest daughter, she didn't pay attention to me. She stayed home and was a stay at home mom for a while. But I kept saying that, you know, you have gone to school to get a lot of education. You need to share that education. So I think anybody that has done what my children have done should not be home. And nothing is wrong with being a housewife. But if you have so much to share, share it, because others can look at you as a role model. And they, all of them have been told many, many times they're role models, because the town that we live in only have about 2% black. So we have people in our church, people in our community, that are looking up to them to be the best they can. They do things in the church, and that is something that people don't necessarily do anymore. They've walked away from the church because of the pandemic. But the pandemic should have only been a stopping point to regroup and now come back together again. So is there one child that has done more than the others? No, I think they're just all my babies.

[29:05] ADRIA DUNN: So if someone were to say, this is the one thing I remember most about Irene Dunn, you could either go back to your past or maybe something in the more recent past, you know, a long past or more recent. What do you think somebody would say about you?

[29:23] IRENE DUNN: She's always trying to get me to go into nursing. None of my children, as I mentioned, they didn't in different fields, none of them went into medicine. And I've worn so many hats over the time of my life, it's very hard. But in the patients that I have now, and I mentioned from five up to 80 something across the lifespan, I have so many that have sent me pictures saying that, you got my son through high school, he's in college now. You've got my child to do this. They trusted you. I believe in telling the truth. You know, I had one instructor that said, oh, well, you can basically lie. And I said, I can't because I'm not going to remember what I told them. So I have to tell them the truth. I have to be honest with them. So the hats, you know, from being a practical nurse to being a registered nurse to being an army officer to being an educator to being now a pastor's wife, that is the hardest thing for me, to be a pastor's wife. Part of it is because I didn't have the training that should have been given to me as a young woman. So I was always doing things on my own. So there's mistakes I make, not intentional. I don't mean to hurt people. And, you know, there she goes, past this wife. They always do this, and they always do that. I try not to. I try to stay out of people's business. I don't go in their homes, their bedrooms, or anything. When we talk some I've had, as my clients and my daughter can tell you, I've talked to people, and they'll say, oh, we got your mother. She says, you do. I don't share. I don't share that information. That's between. And I tell all my clients it's between me and you. We're the only ones in this room. Now, if you do something that's detrimental, you want to kill yourself or somebody else, I have to report it. But let's see if we can get through this. So even though I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I do a lot of therapy. And in the therapy, you know, I try to get them. I'm not trying to get them to my church, but whatever church you had been a part of. How about if you go back and talk to your pastor, your priest, your rabbi, whoever you're talk to before the pandemic, go back to them, see if you can establish a relationship again with them so that you can move on and do what your spiritual advisor can tell you or provoke you to do.

[32:04] ADRIA DUNN: Okay, if you could talk to a younger version of yourself, what would you say?

[32:09] IRENE DUNN: Don't do what I did.

[32:13] ADRIA DUNN: Which is?

[32:14] IRENE DUNN: Which is trying to go to school full time and raise a family of three, eventually becoming four. It's hard on the family. It's hard on the spice, the spouse. My husband, he gets upset. He's angry, but he's always been there for me. So, you know, he may not be happy about what I've done in the past, but he has no problem out introducing me as doctor Dunn. He did in the beginning. He did in the beginning because he wanted to mix church and outside. In church, I'm first lady Dunn, but in my office, I'm Doctor Dunn. So I wanted him to be able to separate the two. Also go to school if you must, go to school if you must, but find a time that you have the most help you can have. I never had help, remember I said, I don't have any siblings, so the only help was always my husband. So a lot fell on him. He's after 50, what, seven years of marriage. It's like, I don't know what she going to do next. And I'm trying not to do something next, but I still have that inner drive. Why I have that inner drive, it could be from the people that raised me. They didn't push me. They didn't do anything. But I just want to prove to them they made a good choice when they got me.

[33:47] ADRIA DUNN: Well, I would say that explains why you kept telling us, don't date in high school. Wait till you get your education to get married.

[33:53] IRENE DUNN: And we all did.

[33:55] ADRIA DUNN: I think we all waited till we were at least 30. So, yeah, I think you did a great job. I used to say, I don't know if you recall, I used to say, oh, when I have a child, I'm gonna raise my child like you did us. And you probably wondered why, but I felt that you did a good job as your daughter. I felt you did a good job.

[34:15] IRENE DUNN: My other child says, I'm not gonna do anything like my mother. And she tried not to. And because she tried not to, she had problems with that, with that child. But I think she's now realized what she's let him miss out on, and she's trying to bring it back to him so that even though he's grown, she's going to go back to try to raise him again so that he can benefit from what she could do. But yes, all of them had finished school by the time, finished their bachelor's degree, by the time they had gotten married.

[34:55] ADRIA DUNN: I want to say Ann Masters.

[34:58] IRENE DUNN: Yeah, and masters also. They did.

[35:00] ADRIA DUNN: Okay, so we'll probably close soon. But is there anything in life that you would say if I could leave a legacy for someone or leave them some last words, whether it's to. To your children, your great, your grandchildren, your anybody? We say, this is what I want people to remember.

[35:23] IRENE DUNN: What would it be? Well, I don't have many grandchildren. I have friends that, you know, we talking double digit grandchildren. I think I have, what, five or six grandchildren? So I can't say much to them. But I have said to my children, and they all know this saying. I tell them, you know, me and your dad are going to live to 100, so don't wait for us to die to get any money because there's no money left. We are going on cruises. We've always vacationed with the children. The first cruise that Adria went on, she was eight months old, and we cruise with our children. We vacationed with our children, so we gave the children what we had. We didn't leave them to other people so we could enjoy our lives. So I tell my students when I do teach, because I still teach, but not full time, I tell my students, you make a day with your family and you set aside that day and you don't do anything. I don't care what you have. If you have a test coming, you have assignments that you need to get done. Whatever day you pick, you work with your children and they will know that you don't lie to them. In working with your family, they will work with you. And you don't have to say, oh, I promise to do this, but this is more important because that's what you're telling them. It's more important. So me and their daddy living to 100, they won't get any money. And I tell them, and neither will your children because your children are probably going to. You're in your eighties, your children are in their sixties, so they shouldn't get any money. Also, you need to take care of your families in more ways than just financial. Be there, love them, do things with them so that they can have a good report on you when it's your time to leave this earth.

[37:33] ADRIA DUNN: And one thing I can say is that we always had a house full of love. Whether you brought in your brother in.

[37:38] IRENE DUNN: Laws to live with us.

[37:42] ADRIA DUNN: Nieces, nephews, your godson, lived with you for four years of high school. You've always, as a family, that you've made sure that we had a family that was loving and warm, never backstabbed each other, didn't talk about each other. If there was an issue, we could always go straight to each other. And that's the great part that I love, is that you've always made sure that we could talk to each other as a family member and not around each other, not about each other, but that we always had a house of love, that we could spend time together. Good moments and bad moments. So I just want to say thank you for letting me interview you. I know when I first asked you, you were shocked like me, and I said yes. I feel like people need to know your story, and I appreciate the time that you've spent with me. So thank you.

[38:25] IRENE DUNN: I told you that you touched my heart to the point that I cried. And it takes a lot to make me cry. It really does. Because I have to feel in my heart, I feel like I have to be strong, so I have to be there for you. But I really appreciated you saying this to me and letting your siblings know so that they could see that your mama's special. I don't have a special. I just love you all the same.

[38:55] ADRIA DUNN: And we believe that. Thank you.

[38:59] IRENE DUNN: You're welcome. Thank you for doing this with me.