September Eason and Katherine Whitfield

00:06 My name is Katherine Elizabeth Whitfield. I'm 37 years old. Today's date is Wednesday, September 25th, 2019. We are recording the storycorps in Memphis, Tennessee and my fabulous interview partner is September wassenberg Eason who is a dear friend and colleague and sort of a surrogate Memphis family member to me now. I'm Katherine. So happy to see you. My name is September wassenberg. That's really Martha. September temper wassenberg Eason. I'm 54 as of a few weeks 2 weeks ago. Today is Wednesday, September 25th.

00:47 2019 we are in Memphis, Tennessee and my awesome interview partner is Katherine Elizabeth Whitfield and we are friends that met through a volunteer work relationship that were friends first now.

01:06 Katherine I did meet you at LeBonheur although the more conversations we've had the more I see how many things we've had in common the rest of our lives but you know more about the store than I do. How did Le Bonheur Children's Hospital come into existence? So this is one of my favorite stories I give tours of the Children's Hospital several times a month symptoms several times a week once four times in one day, which I don't recommend and I got to say I get emotionally moved every single time. I tell this story and it's it's rare that I don't have a tour group for at least one person is reaching for a tissue at LeBonheur Children's Hospital is very special to me in a lot of ways. I've worked there for almost 12 years, and it's a Bedrock of the Memphis community and one of the things that I think makes LeBonheur such a sacred special place because we hear that all the time I hear that from people who have moved from Chicago and Philadelphia and California to work in Memphis, Tennessee.

02:06 They will say this place is different. I walked in the door is and I felt it. I knew this was where I was supposed to work and I hear that from families who got in care all over the country that LeBonheur is special and I really think it is because of our origin story because a lot of the children's hospitals in the country that their name is a family that had millions and millions of dollars or a donor were sponsor or a corporation or a town and we are named for a group of founding mothers who breathes are Hospital into existence and I really had no thought of Health Care when they came together LeBonheur itself at we open in 1952. So we're 67 years old, but our story is 96 years old at there is a group of women almost a hundred years ago in Memphis and at they were really a typical for their era they were at missing them in their early 20s.

03:06 College-educated they were unmarried. Oh my travel internationally and they had come home to Memphis and they knew that they wanted to do something to make a difference in the community and they had a shared Hobby and skill set of sewing and many of them through their national titles has learned the language of French and so they made a club and they called it Le Bonheur Club because Le Bonheur literally translates to good hour and informally means happiness. So they form the happiness club and they got together for a few good hours a month and they made clothes for kids living at the Leith orphanage in Memphis and they did this for about 20 years and over that span of time. They grew and many of them did get married and had children and if they had girls they became petite club members and they continue their mission of sewing and making clothes for these kids who didn't have anybody to

04:06 Shepherd them and to Steward their growth and over the Decades of these women also realized, you know, at what I've seen the service again and again people start small and they get a taste of it and they're hooked and they can't stop serving and and growing and so are these women weren't just making clothes but they were looking out for these kids and driving them to doctor's appointment and that's really the watershed moment in our story because these women who were smart and strong and brave and courageous. They knew that Memphis desperately needed a children's hospital not a children's home where people could go and be where you could put a kid but a hospital where you could be made while and come home to your home. I'm getting emotional thinking about it. Now story I think about this women and what the world must have been like when they were trying to do this. So yeah, I mean really an uphill

05:04 That'll probably in a lot of ways and so in 1945 or in the mid-40s these women set a goal to raise a million dollars to start a children's hospital and I have to be very rare and distinct privilege of interviewing a lot of the early early members a few years ago for another project for another project and heard them talk about the challenges in the struggles in the way the community did not support a group of women with a big Financial dream. I had $1000000 just a lot of money in 2019. I cannot imagine how much that was on the heels of World War II and III every time I tell this story I talk about girl power power fashion the with the club members said, you know ya million dollars, maybe that's not the right well and they raised over two million dollars and they built the hospital with Community engagement and support.

06:04 Really Brick by Brick from the ground up and on June 15th, 1952 a woman named Elise Pritchard. He was a club president at the time stood at the doors to LeBonheur with a bunch of balloons and a set of keys used and she tied them together in a way that I think even that symbolize the unification of community and she released those keys on on those balloons and they raised into the sky and float it away and she said the doors to LeBonheur Children's Hospital will always be open for every child in need for guardless of their families ability to pay.

06:37 And that was 67 years ago and the dream holds true. I get chill bumps thinking about the fact that I would not that this sacred place that is scared for millions and millions of kids saved hundreds of thousands of lives in 67 years might not exist. If some college friends right who like to sell had decided they would rather spend their time doing something for themselves or personal edification instead of for their community.

07:07 And look where we are today. It's amazing. Isn't it is now it stands in the skyline and when you see it everywhere, it makes you think I see hope when I see it I do too. But I hear that from a lot of her parents about the big stitched heart on the on the roof and that they can see it from miles and miles away. So what I would love to hear from you cuz I do tell that story lunch. Where's actually told it to a group of third graders at Ramblewood Elementary a few months ago and one of the really it just spilled my spirit for I am still thinking about it when I told them that the women were going to raise a million dollars and they didn't get a lot of support for that dream. I was just being rhetorical and he said that kids do we get off on our Dream 300 3rd graders shook there. They just yelled.

08:00 Oh and I thought no we don't and thank God you didn't and I say you because you of course are a loner Club member and I would love to hear any of the stories, you know from from the days of yore and more especially as I think probably being a club member in 1952 look very different from 2019. So I want to know that this Coupe. I think it looks a lot different now and I tell you it's it's it's so interesting in 2019 to belong to a woman's Club, you know, what sort of something you don't really see any more almost old-fashioned but it's it's still so effective in that it's it's this huge group of women from all different walks of life all different experiences with one shared goal to make the Children's Hospital in our area as strong as it can be financially with with sir providing volunteers with providing information, you know throughout the community for it.

09:00 Plus it's also social organization and it's something that's it. It's it's it's had its ups and downs, but I can tell you that it's mission to the hospitals never change. These women are very committed to the kids and you know it as you know, we take children from all over the place and Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri, Uganda, Uganda everywhere anybody that needs help is care for and so these local women provide that really is a world mission they do in our town that brush sizes pretty small to have such a large Children's Hospital, you know, we only have so many people here and we only have so many people who will as a percentage to charity and they choose to do this for us is pretty amazing. So I enjoy it very much. It's it's just one head of my mother Bonner volunteer part that I wear but it's also a pretty important when I do appreciate the Legacy.

10:00 That these women so many years ago almost a hundred now started it's pretty impressive. But I have a question to me. But if you had a time machine and you went back to I don't know not June June 15th, 1952 or you know, the early 40s, you know, or if you got to just pop up in a meeting where these women were talking about raising this money where they were cutting the ribbon. What would you want them to know? What would you want to say to them about about their legacy went cuz I didn't know what they were creating. I don't think I've ever told you this but my grandmother was part of that group. I know I didn't hear that. So I think that she's probably one that instill

10:49 That it made so much. I think I'd want him to know that what they're doing what they're doing really matters. We must have known it because they did so much so amazing and I must have had that in her lift your spirit to propel him to do those very difficult things, but

11:07 I think I would just assure them what they're doing that or it matters not just here but exponentially around the world pretty amazing. Only just the children we care for the research that we do now in sa way I like to take credit for yourself. And you messed up I in trouble in the end of the collaboration in partnership with st. Jude that the things that that are happening in our medical area mostly related to Children is just amazing. I think it's the women that so many years ago had had seen what the future holds and how many children are doing. So well and enjoying really happy productive lives when they would have not been able to survive that many years ago. I think they'd be pretty pretty happy with themselves. Well, and I am a couple of them when I did interview them out at

12:07 Manor the dedication like at the two stories that stuck in my mind forever in the tooth isn't did that interview in 2012. I think for her 60th birthday book, but I remember one lady talking about driving to the hospital for her shift and her tire went flat and said she's on the side of her. I don't know where she lived and she just left her car there and call a cab. And this was a good one. Even a long story. She just said she said you just not that she didn't say you didn't miss your shift. She said you weren't late. Yeah, because a night back, you know that gave me chills because they let you know the women ran it they did run it they made the sheets and that they said they had a sewing room feel the sewing machine. The neighbor called the Sunshine Girls and they made scrub. I mean every mask and sheet and pillowcase and gown and answer the phones and operated the elevators and that was another story.

13:07 The other story that stuck with me a lady who said her job like the day the hospital open, her job was to run the elevators and she was terrified because she had gotten stuck in an elevator once and do you work again? Like if that was that promise the forties and then we're going up to Big elevator and she was so scared, but she didn't want to trade or let down her assignment. So she got in the elevator and one of the doctors

13:34 Could just perceived perceived her fear and rode with her for the first 30 minutes of her shift telling her jokes all that's kind. That's all she need a marriage and I don't think it where we three stories and I didn't know if you had any special like if you had a favorite Club story or experiences A club member of the toys. I don't remember this when I went to the hospital as a child getting a toy every time you went to the hospital or you went in for surgery and said that bunny Lane which is the toy Lane and they have every child. He goes to love honor and has a procedure part of the joy. They don't they don't mind so much cuz they're getting this toy. Well, that was one of the ideas of the club so many years ago was was to make it all about the children and then also to relieve their fears so that they weren't so afraid when they went into the

14:34 Surgery, you know just grabbing them grabbing a bunny grabbing a stuffed animal. You know now that it's it looks very different. They're still stuffed animals that there are lots of other different types of toys and you know, it's floor-to-ceiling and they may go down that Long Island. They can pick whatever they want. And then we wouldn't nice gift to give to a child disorder to ease Their Fear and a very very scary moment. I think that's a pretty cool thing that the club continues to do and just have to have the foresight to think about that right to make it a safe place and I think the Eevee Campbell the theory that Jenny shared it recently about her six-year-old daughter having 104 degree fever at at at at Urgent Care Center on Sunday and this Edition said, you know, you guys need to take her to an emergency room right away and Evie burst into tears and her mom says it was sweetheart. We got to go to LeBonheur and she immediately stops crying and says, oh thank goodness. I thought something bad was happening. And yeah, I think and I do think that's really a test.

15:34 Clubs Legacy, it makes children feel at home and to feel safe. And that's that's a lot of healing to you know, you're not worried about that.

15:46 So we know each other because you kinda like my boss now, I think a little bit like my boss in a way but you're also and enough people joke, you are fearless leader. It's pretty amazing. That's a lot of people to keep happy at one time. But well, I just a secret is that I don't smile at me. I worked at LeBonheur for 7 years.

16:27 Well, then, I guess I never dreamed of working in healthcare. I never dreamed of working with volunteers. I wanted to are you an English major? I am a creative writing major with a religious studies minor. So I'm just grateful to be employed and R&B at hospital with my brother is a surgeon yet that was his path and I wanted to write the Great American novel was going to go get a master's degree in creative writing and then head hit a wall with school and got a job working at davis-kidd booksellers in Memphis Little Indie bookstore that still exists but under a new name novel and was there for four years and it got recruited at we had a working relationship with Le Bonheur and they told me they really needed a ride there and say I came into the hospital space to do the newsletter and to take some blurry pictures of a retirement cakes. And do you still do that? Newsletter? No.

17:27 Plenty yeah, just a Weekly Newsletter. And yeah, I have always joked that my secret retirement plan is for the Le Bonheur cakes. So yeah, but I came in and I just started telling the hospital stories and I started working more and more with our families and with our patients and telling the stories of Heroes and caregivers and

17:54 Overtime at I felt a call to Seminary really broccoli with my grandfather died in 2014 and got him a sword identity and Faith Hill social justice and transitioned after my first year in grad school the director of volunteer services and patient family-centered care opened up and it really the last four years cuz I just had a 4-year anniversary in August really has been one of the great privileges of my life is also one of the great challenges of my life. My learning curve was Steep and the big job. It's a big job and it falls under that umbrella. Well, and we have a great team into me like the best kept secret. I know you said it's at that's a lot of people to keep happy. But I kind of joke. There are four people technically on our payroll myself included that we have slight 250 people that come to work with us. And so we really have the true privilege of cultivating relationships.

18:54 The folks and I mention writing a newsletter because I spent my first seven years mostly telling the stories of and communicating to people who work at longer and I thought I knew how much somebody could love that institution and then I started working with the people who work there for free ya like you and

19:16 It's just next level, you know and end in the who can't you can pay me to where I don't want him, but I can't pick it up today, Don't you need a job and to get paid and yes, I do need a job that pays but I don't want to be paid for what I'm doing right now. This is my time to do what I'm doing right now. And the reason I'm doing it is because they saved my daughter's life. And so how do you ever ever pay that back? I mean, it's it's impossible. I can work everyday for 50 years.

19:52 And I can't pay that back. They saved your life and then they gave me purpose because of the people in that hospital. So well.

20:10 You know, I was being silly when I said, you know, I can't pay you and but the truth is I mean what I love most about working with volunteers is a lot of things are transactional even if you love it. Yeah. I have clock in and out right now and they're there is a transactional aspect to that and when I get to work with volunteers, whether it's students who want to go to med school or are sociology majors and they're going to go live in the wilderness and they want volunteer service whether it's kids her coming into just learn and be shaped by their experiences were parents of our patients or whomever musicians who are donating their time and talents the artist art on the walls at the hospital is amazing. Yes. I mean it said that the director of the Brooks Museum called at the finest Private Collection the city and and whatever it is, you know, whatever brings people to volunteer with us. It doesn't feel transaction.

21:10 Call it feels circular the wheels at the Mill where it's just the water keeps pooping and filling in fueling and fueling. The feeling is when I get out of it that I didn't think I would ya will you mentioned a couple of times at LeBonheur save your daughter's life. And I have the benefit of knowing that story and knowing that your daughter is down at interning with me. That's right. That's awesome driving watch out. So I know are you up for telling Anna Lee Story. I am always up for telling the story.

21:52 It is amazing how your life can change from one moment to another is so it was about

22:02 Seven years ago now can this time slide? She was just nine years old about to start third grade and I have two other children ran an Eevee and then I have Anna late and she's the baby so a little spoiled maybe but we we love her and she she was a great swimmer. So we did Twenty Mile swim all summer long and she was so strong. I did so well and she was getting ready to go swim banquet and she said she wanted she thought cuz coach kind of gave her head. She was getting this huge traffic that was like four feet tall. So what 9 year old doesn't want to force her if she wasn't herself and she wasn't excited. She was just kind of lethargic and just really not being herself. And so it seemed odd, but she went ahead and went and came home and she just didn't feel well and so the next day I took her to her pediatrician and it looks like maybe she had strep throat. So they gave her that humongous shot of Rocephin that hurts like the Dickens cuz it's so slow in thick and

23:02 We went home and she laid on the couch with she never does and she just didn't feel well and so toward the end of the day. I called called the pediatrician back and they said what she may be dehydrated. Why don't you take her to the emergency room and just get an IV for hydration? So I thought okay. So if they come on let's jump in the car. She couldn't walk about that time. My husband was was coming in the door from work and he he had to pick her up and he went with us and we went out to the Methodist LeBonheur in Germantown and she just kept getting worse or her breathing was getting worse and no one knew what was going on with her and she's kept saying mom. Can you hold me up hold my legs that I can you hold them in a triangle. What is that doing for you? But she was it was hurting and so she just couldn't figure out what it was. Well as the minutes war on hours. Her breathing she could hardly breathe and so at that point

24:02 They said you got to go downtown to LeBonheur. So this is about 3 in the morning. We went came downtown. We had an amazing transport team and one of them people on there. So how scared I was so she started to talk to me and call me down and then only with CR2 she had the big mask on her and she never been sick ever. None of my broken a bone before we were so nice. And so we get to the hospital and all that from that point on I had to ask other people what happened because it comes becomes a blur long story short that's possible we end up in the picu to Pediatric ICU. She's on a ventilator. She can't breathe. She can't move. She's the only member eyelids and can't communicate with us. And so we didn't know what was wrong with her. It just it was this sort of just massive. I think it was like a tsunami just came through honest and we didn't we didn't know.

25:02 Stand it. We didn't we couldn't figure it out until we were just sort of being followed by these beautiful people who were trying to care for us, but it was obvious. We were in shock.

25:15 A week of not knowing what in the world was going on with her this pic. You tame was amazing. So of course, we never been involved this but we didn't understand like that. We would be involved in the case and so very quickly I learned I had a notebook and I would go on the rounds for her and I would I was in this group of 10 people and they're all the Physicians and they were talking about her case and what we were doing and where they were with this and that so I was taking notes trying to understand it and they were so engaging and let me ask questions and just did whatever whatever I needed. They were there to answer the questions. They taking her case and told to send it out to their colleagues all around the world CDC. I couldn't figure out what it was. They were they sent all these samples everywhere trying to figure out what what was it? What was causing his end about the sixth day they came back with a probable diagnosis of Guillain-Barre syndrome.

26:12 Which now we know a lot more about it, but and we're still not a hundred percent sure that that's what it was but it sure look like it but that because it it come on so fast and it affected or so so acutely we had to do something or she was going to die and the traditional method was the IVIG. So they started that and they did it for about two days and nothing was happening and everyone was expecting that there would be some movement to it. She would start, you know, turn the corner to get better and she wasn't until you think again insulted everybody. I finally decided to do something. They usually don't do in children is plasmapheresis and that's like a where they basically clean your blood and they're pretty invasive procedure for the first time two times. They put her through that machine this machine clogged because she had so many anybody's it was just as it was it was so strange. The normal process wasn't

27:12 Looking inside of a finally on the third the third swipe or whatever ever cleaning ever blood.

27:20 She needs her little finger and Katherine. I tell you that I see you everybody and then it was like being in a ball game and people were crying because I knew that she was going to be okay, then they'd stop the stop the stop the progression and so

27:42 She just slowly started getting better and better. I mean, they stood still want, you know, she's getting close to have a tracheotomy. But one of my favorite doctor is there was not have it and he said we're going to get her off in this we're going to get her off of this and so he kept trying and it kept trying until he sat with me one night. We taking off the breathing and we just breathe Anna Lee great and pizza breathe breathe about 6 hours. Braiding more more more on the road. And I don't know if it was a bad. She didn't have time to try Kiana me.

28:24 So it looks return that corner and got a whole lot better but there's so many residual problems when you have something on your body basically shuts down so she had to learn how to walk but the only other nerves were they called the disease kills all over nerves. So the nurse had to regenerate or regeneration of nerves is store nearly painful huge amounts of pain just lying in our body in the bed. So, you know moving or trying to do o teach and do OT PT and speech every day and for that it was basically swallowing up.

29:02 She she worked through it though. I mean that child. I've never known anyone as tough as her. She just she went she just kept fighting through it kept fighting to it. And I know it hurt and shoot up tears streaming down her face and asked and this week just to sit up on the side of the bed, you know, I ain't got better and it slowly slowly and then you know, you don't you don't realize that comes past and it just getting better and better. So we spent about five weeks at the hospital then we had to figure out where to go next because she needed Inpatient Rehab and we didn't have any solutions at the time here. We were going to have to go to a big city that had a had him into Inpatient Rehab because she was still on the she still had to have IV. Otherwise we would have figured out another way to do it. So we had to go to Johns Hopkins has Kennedy Krieger injury or illness looks like a spinal cord injury same as that would be the same PT that she would have to

30:02 The night. So there that world renowned for for spinal cord injury. So that's where we went and it was a huge shock is a lot different than what we're used to but you work through it. We work through it. You know, we had this beautiful room at LeBonheur and basically brand-new hospital. This is a very old old room shared room with curtains and very dirty and you know you I think now it's it's it's been built and there's a lovely lovely still either now it's just our timing was off and so we worried about germs and but they all the doctors at Johns Hopkins ree-ree ran all the tests to check everything and they said you were the best place you could possibly be and they had other kids there at had similar experiences and they didn't have as fast a reaction is in weighted because I care wasn't it was extreme the Miller Fisher variant. A lot of those kids had a transverse myelitis in the spinal cord and it is

31:01 Very difficult. They kept getting sent back home from the emergency departments. And so they didn't have the fast response that we had. And so she was able to fully 100% recovered took a long time. So we came back home and get outpatient rehab for about two years after that has little like tiny things but nothing nothing more than what I had said. She's doing right. She's 16 years old beautiful happy does it's at swim practice right now, you know life is good and my husband and I both my older two children every every banana lie, cuz she works for you to everybody saw the miraculous difference that place in those people made in our lives that we will all do my son wants to go to medical school to be a pediatric orthopedic. Hopefully will but it's it's a nice. It's a no

32:01 Thing to be able to look back and say okay. I understand why we went through that. Well, I think in terms of

32:11 Thank you for sharing that. I have a couple of questions. It just popped in my head Ashley for

32:20 For the agents, who was the doctor that set up with you and told her to breathe come Spence's and so he can be a little hard to understand but I tell you what in the wee hours of the morning if nobody and rather has to help him you make my kid better piece. And then do you remember what when you saw your daughter's little finger move rememberer? Is it I know you said so much of it was a blur and it was like a ball game. But do you remember what you thought in that moment or what you felt I felt relief because I knew she was going to live and in my husband who he know him. He's a he's

33:08 Ace amazing man, but he's he's consistently serious. And I mean, I've never seen him so very happy so very very much related to the way we did is he he took the daytime and I took the night time in so we weren't together a lot but we happen to be there for that when them it was good because then he could he can speak directly and I just want to beat around the bush and tell him so he was the better person to speak directly to people and I need to have a conversation. He was a great great amazing parent advocate. You know why you're with someone when you see him perform in this sort of environment is pretty awesome joke yesterday 26 years. We've been married to in 26 years. You didn't you didn't pictures because we are because I know who the nurse was in the ambulance with you and I just want a for posterity.

34:08 Because I was Carrie Barlow and Carrie Barlow, right? So not only did she make us feel better as we were going down to the meaning of the very scary big hospital that actually I've never been to before I get my child a steak. She came and checked on us every beginning of every shift and at the end of every shift she checked on us and she made sure that we're okay. Sometimes I would just say you're her Shadow or figure, you know in the in the window, but then the next year she was a PDF flight nurse and that the chopper went down and I remember when I heard it on the news that sell please don't let it be carry it was but I did go to a funeral and you probably were there to listen amazing funeral and I know she's been having an issue with an angel in that. I know she's an angel now and I wanted her parent. I wanted her her family to know what an amazing woman she was and what a different she made in our lives.

35:07 Well, I know I just say you had cheered that recently and that I just yeah, absolutely why I just I mean that was one of the strangest and most difficult.

35:20 And it is when the helicopter went down is just that was I know I remember the kind of the whole Hospital in the middle of that grief and knowing that we had lost two of our employees carry and Denise to our family members light and it Hospital Wing had lost one of their Villages pilots and that even in that moment and just dark despair that everybody the recurring theme was thank God they were on their way to pick up a chair light and that they didn't have any problem before it, right? Yeah the end of the day I'm sure they were relieved to and they weren't they were they were great service great service. Well, and I think it just it's a testament to

36:06 Nina people really do give their lives in a lot of different ways to this work and thankfully it's usually just the heart and the mind and I was going to just segue into anywhere Annalise story has taken her because LeBonheur is a hospital built on the concept of giving back and our roots are showing in service and the woman who birthed the hospital into being are still an integral part of our Fabric and it has been my great joy to work most specifically with the parents and siblings of current and former patients and with the patients themselves. And so it has been a great joy for me that Anna Lee is now and as of course, you know, I'm going to intern with me for the next to wish 223's year, maybe more if she is currently we're going to actually start next Wednesday. I just ordered her business card. She's so very excite.

37:06 And that she's going to be like when the only High School sophomores with a business card and ID badge, but she is going to be helping us for the next two years. We have a family Partners cancel that has more than 85 member since its Inception 11 years ago and over 50 active current members and Annalee is our newest part. I'm not even going to call her a petite partner that she is helping us relaunch a teen advisory Council because we had one seven years ago, but it was mostly comprised of children of Associate's and we are excited to have a counsel representing and advocating for the voices of our team's themselves and the next week. She's going to start going door-to-door just like her mama before her and now and I'm asking are teens questions about their experience and giving us insights to improve the care. We give to our young

38:06 Are older younger my license? And so I think it's just that you know that what we talked about before that wheel in the full circle and it given energy. I think it's a pretty amazement to me if you think about Le Bonheur, that's what it is. Yeah, it gives you energy give you momentum. It gives you hope we are we losing the community Through health and healing and the community sustains us through funding and support and time and energy and that neither would exist without the other and I personally am deeply grateful. I do not have to exist on this planet without the Eason family and especially my sweet friend to tell you stories with you today and Katherine. Thank you so much.