A brick in the courtyard of Tyler Junior College's Rogers School of Nursing and Health Sciences pays tribute to the nursing school that existed from 1951 to 1984. (Photo by Darrell Clakley) 

The Texas Eastern School of Nursing trained hundreds of students as a branch of Tyler Junior College from 1951 to 1984. Although the school no longer exists, efforts to preserve its legacy continue. 

Each year, some of the former students reunite and the stories of the young nurses in training live on through items in the college’s archives.

The Texas Eastern School of Nursing was created to meet the need for nurses at Mother Frances Hospital and the new Medical Center Hospital. Officials from the hospitals agreed to oversee the training. 

The school opened in the fall of 1951 with 23 students.

“The Tyler area had many hopes and dreams of some day becoming a real medical community,” said a history of the school prepared by the late June Murphy, who was one of the original students and later served as its director.

The curriculum included classroom training and clinic practice at one of the hospitals.

“The students were required to achieve an associate degree in science along with a diploma in nursing which meant many hours of study to prepare for academic requirements and at least 24 hours a week of clinical practice,” Murphy wrote in 1984 marking the end of the school.

In August of 1952, 12 students were the first to graduate. “We worked in a blue dress with a white collar and cuffs but we had to earn our (nursing) cap and aprons,” Murphy said.

In 1958, Texas Eastern School of Nursing moved into a new school and dorm at 501 Clinic Drive located between the two hospitals. 

Students and teachers shared close bonds.

“I loved my students and they loved me back,” said information from Larue Hardee, who began teaching there in 1961 and served as its director from 1966 to 1972.

In an article prepared for TJC last year, Hardee recalled laughing about “the day I found a possum in the classroom, the night students wrapped our house and then later how the guilty parties had an unwrapping party.”

Both Murphy and Hardee have written that they are proud of the legacy of the Texas Eastern School of Nursing.

“Although the Texas Eastern School of Nursing is no more, I am proud of how it was reborn as part of TJC and was key to this community’s support for building the magnificent Rogers Nursing & Health Sciences Center,” Hardee said.

“I am eternally grateful to God for directing me to TESN and for many happy and fruitful times,” Murphy wrote. “Thank God for these nurses, all 875 of them.”

In recent years, the Texas Eastern School of Nursing reunion has been held in the Rogers School of Nursing and Health Sciences

Veronica McMullen, a member of the class of 1968, is one of the nursing graduates who gather each fall to share memories with fellow graduates.

McMullen said the students had to observe strict curfews in the dorm and were expected to follow many rules.

“It was a grueling and hard curriculum that brought forth excellent nurses,” McMullen said. 

McMullen said it is important to many of the graduates that the contributions of the school are never forgotten.

“Also to preserve our memory, last year we dedicated a brick in honor of TESN (in the plaza) at the Rogers building,” she said. 

Robin Insalaco, the archivist at Tyler Junior College, attended the most recent reunion and asked the participants to contribute items from the school to be included in the college’s archives.

“We want to preserve the history of the school and its items of enduring value,” she said. 

The college’s collection from the Texas Eastern School of Nursing includes board minutes, class photos and yearbooks. She said she would love to add personal photos taken by the students and letters between the students and their families.

“I would like to know more about what their lives were like and what they were going through. All of these things are important components to TJC’s history,” she said.