SKETCHBOOK

A couple of nurses are in hot pursuit of a medical history mystery.

It's their history and they want it found by the time they and their fellow nurses have their annual alumni association gathering in September.

These nurses are the alumni of the Hotel Dieu Hospital School of Nursing and what they're hunting for are 10 irreplaceable photographs of their graduates and of the hospital where they trained.

Alma Hebert, 87, is a member of the class of 1945. Mercedes Pierson, 85, is a 1946 graduate. (Her friends just call her Mercy, which is a fine name for a nurse.)

Hebert and Pierson attended a time capsule opening for Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital's 50th anniversary on Friday. During the ceremony, they held an artist's rendering of their four-story red brick hospital that occupied a bluff on the banks of the Neches River near the Port of Beaumont for more than 80 years.

"Hotel Dieu is the mother of St. Elizabeth Hospital," Hebert declared.

And of St. Therese as well, where Pierson worked as an obstetrics nurse.

The Hotel Dieu's nurses' association holds its alumni meetings at Christus St. Elizabeth and the historic photos were kept there to keep them safe from damage.

The photos might have been put someplace else during a cleanup, Hebert theorized. And then someone might have taken them because they were interesting, perhaps to save them from being thrown out.

The rest is here:
Hotel Dieu nurses hunt for old photos