My Mother, the Nurse - Elizabeth Winifred Wike Fulton
When my grandfather, CH Fulton, finally exploded in a brain hemmorage of anger, blood and intemporance one July night in 1965, it was my mother the nurse who I found sitting on his wildly pulsating lap when I walked into his home on s 52nd street in west Philadelphia that night.
Red faced, eyes blown, screaming, Mom yelled, get a sheet, I've got to tie him down. I did, she did, it was an hour later, my Dad showed up, Grandad had cooled down, circling the drain, Dad picked him up, carrying forever up to his back bedroom for the long walk back behind the barn.
I could see the relief in Mom's eyes. Two days later it was over, Mom was back at work, "Charge Nurse" on the fourth floor at a large downtown hospital that still stands in center city Philly.
She worked shift work: ER work was the most exciting for her, just like in the TV shows, the knife and gun club they called it. She told me stories I never forgot. The pregnancy clinic: welfare women revolving in and out constantly. " Whose the father?" Mom would ask. A classic answer, " if you sat on a pin cushion," one told her, " could you tell which one stuck you?" That from 1952.
Philadelphia winters were stark, freezing and streets were lonely, frightening and full of gangs cruising the streets with guns. The crime, drive by shootings, rapes and murders were awful. Mom had to go to hospitals in west Philadelphia neighborhoods in the 50's that scared most policemen.
Picture wind and snow-swept streets well below 20 degrees, street lights swinging in the wind, black ice or 3 feet drifts everywhere so bad, even trolleys didn't run. Occasional buses would slip and slide. Mom took cabs now and then paid for by the hospitals.
She ALWAYS wore her nurses unifrom in those days and many times the street gangs in cars would pick her up and give her a ride to the hospital. They NEVER harmed her.
She figured they wanted a nurse to know them in case they got shot or stabbed. If they did, they could go to that hospital and get the care from somebody who owed them a favor.
It worked every time.
That was in 1955 and through the beginning of the 60's. Mom was never so glad to see the election of Mayor Frank Rizzo, or as the rest of us called him, The Cisco Kid. Mayor Rizzo, an Italian American from South Philadelphia came up through the ranks of the Philadelphia PD and took NO nonsense from criminals in Philly, black, white, Mafia, you name it.
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Red faced, eyes blown, screaming, Mom yelled, get a sheet, I've got to tie him down. I did, she did, it was an hour later, my Dad showed up, Grandad had cooled down, circling the drain, Dad picked him up, carrying forever up to his back bedroom for the long walk back behind the barn.
I could see the relief in Mom's eyes. Two days later it was over, Mom was back at work, "Charge Nurse" on the fourth floor at a large downtown hospital that still stands in center city Philly.
She worked shift work: ER work was the most exciting for her, just like in the TV shows, the knife and gun club they called it. She told me stories I never forgot. The pregnancy clinic: welfare women revolving in and out constantly. " Whose the father?" Mom would ask. A classic answer, " if you sat on a pin cushion," one told her, " could you tell which one stuck you?" That from 1952.
Philadelphia winters were stark, freezing and streets were lonely, frightening and full of gangs cruising the streets with guns. The crime, drive by shootings, rapes and murders were awful. Mom had to go to hospitals in west Philadelphia neighborhoods in the 50's that scared most policemen.
Picture wind and snow-swept streets well below 20 degrees, street lights swinging in the wind, black ice or 3 feet drifts everywhere so bad, even trolleys didn't run. Occasional buses would slip and slide. Mom took cabs now and then paid for by the hospitals.
She ALWAYS wore her nurses unifrom in those days and many times the street gangs in cars would pick her up and give her a ride to the hospital. They NEVER harmed her.
She figured they wanted a nurse to know them in case they got shot or stabbed. If they did, they could go to that hospital and get the care from somebody who owed them a favor.
It worked every time.
That was in 1955 and through the beginning of the 60's. Mom was never so glad to see the election of Mayor Frank Rizzo, or as the rest of us called him, The Cisco Kid. Mayor Rizzo, an Italian American from South Philadelphia came up through the ranks of the Philadelphia PD and took NO nonsense from criminals in Philly, black, white, Mafia, you name it.
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