The Pearl F. Day Presentation for DVD

Finding Pearl F. Day : 

Finding Pearl F. Day November 2010-September 2011 Nancy Morris November 29, 2011 Nursing Networking Evening Last year at the last Nursing Networking meeting for Bassett Healthcare Network, I asked Connie Jastremski, RN, CNO, and VP of Patient Care Services, if anyone from the Day family was aware of the annual award for excellence in nursing in honor of Pearl F. Day. When she answered “no”, I decided to try to find them.

Pearl’s life : 

Pearl’s life Pearl was born on June 5, 1891. She had sad periods in her childhood, having lost 2 very young sisters and her father to illness before she was 10. She was moved among her relatives several times before she graduated in 1911 from Bangor High School. Pearl, with brothers Karl and Paul

Slide 3: 

This is a copy of the 1900 census for Washington County, Maine. Here Pearl is noted as Florence Day, just one of the errors in these hand written documents that make this type of research a challenge.

1920 census : 

1920 census In 1919, Pearl went to the Brooklyn Naval Yard with the Naval Nurse Corps. This is where she cared for Henry Allen Moe. She was in service until 1922. She is present in the 1920 Brooklyn census. Note all the nurses listed in what must have been a dormitory setting.

Slide 5: 

I would like to share just a small bit of information on Dr. Moe. He was an extremely bright, accomplished man. He was the first director of the National Endowment for the Humanities and was the president of the American Philosophical Society as well as president for the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He served as trustee, officer and committee member on over 30 boards, including Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital and the New York State Historical Association, both in Cooperstown, NY. Even with all these accomplishments, Dr. Moe was still affected by his nursing care given 50 years prior, expressing his admiration for Pearl F. Day in his will, providing us at Basset Medical Center with what we refer to as the Henry Allen Moe award for nursing in honor of Pearl F. Day. This is a picture of Pearl F. Day in the 1920s on the left and a picture of Henry Allen Moe, wearing his naval uniform, on the right.

Slide 6: 

This is a picture of Pearl and her brother Karl, who is the father of Carola Nickerson, with whom we met in Maine; she gave us the personal information on Pearl F. Day. After the war, Pearl’s profession continued to be listed as nurse on subsequent censuses. Her industry is listed as “private home”. One of the people she cared for was E. Linwood Dean with whom she travelled between Florida and Maine. She married him in 1957. He died in 1962. Pearl died in September of 1979; she was 88 years old.

Slide 8: 

And so now we know a little bit about the person honored through the Henry Allen Moe Award for Excellence in Nursing in honor of Pearl F. Day. In the words of Dr. Moe in his bequest, “The essence of her excellence as a nurse, apart from her professional competence was that she gave me, and others, hope, when there were no rational grounds for hope of recovery from disabilities.”

Slide 9: 

I would like to thank the following people for their help with my Pearl F. Day research: Mrs. Karen Walker Jones, who was my first contact with the Day family – she answered an email I had sent her as she was the closest relative to Pearl in a long list of genealogies. She is an expert on the Day family and keeps the information alive through a quarterly family newsletter. It is through her that my dream of informing the Day family of the honor that has been bestowed on Pearl has been realized. Mrs. Carola Nickerson, who answered my phone call and did not hesitate to welcome a car full of strangers from an unknown place in New York into her home – she fed us a delicious lunch, shared photos and stories and made us feel welcome. She made real a dream that I wouldn’t have thought possible, that we could meet a relative of Pearl F. Day who knew her and loved her as her “favorite aunt”. Mary Powell, a dear friend who accompanied my children and me on the long trip to Maine and so offered support and company. Mary is the first recipient of the Pearl F. Day award. Nancy Morris Middlefield, NY November, 2011