Sandra L. Venegoni Oral History
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Oral history interview with Sandy Venegoni
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Primarily documents Sandy Venegoni's childhood, nursing education, time spent in a convent, her military service as a reservist for the Army Nurse Corps, and her civilian career as a nurse educator. Venegoni discusses her childhood in Saint Louis, Missouri; effects of the death of her biological mother when she was 5; her love of attending Catholic elementary and high school; and the negative reaction of her teacher when she wrote about wanting to join the navy. " She explains her second mother's opinion on women's education and its influence on Venegoni's choice to attend nursing school at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis. She describes living in a dorm with two of her best friends; deciding in 1959 to join the Sisters of Mercy convent that was connected to the school; continuing her nursing education with four other new nuns; and graduating from St. Louis University with a bachelor's degree in nursing. " She describes a typical day in the convent; being assigned to a hospital in Springfield, Missouri for a year after she graduated nursing school; and returning to St. Louis to teach in the nursing diploma program where she had originally begun. She recalls her reaction to the assassination of Kennedy, man's first walk on the moon, and her lack of cultural knowledge during the 1960's due to being in the convent. She reflects on why she loves teaching; how teaching and nursing have both changed over the years; and questioning her commitment to the order after transferring to a convent in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She was granted a dispensation for a year, but never returned to being a nun. " Venegoni provides an overview of her nursing and teaching career after leaving the convent; her job at Johns Hopkins Hospital as a surgical ICU nurse for a year; the grant to get her master's degree in nursing from Emory University; her return to teach at St. Louis University; and the ski trip to North Carolina that introduced her to Amie Modigh. Modigh recruited her for the medical-surgical nursing faculty position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill [UNC] beginning August 1972; Modigh and other friends also convinced Venegoni to join them on a weekend at Fort Bragg, North Carolina with the army reserve nurses. She discusses her reasons for joining the 3274th hospital unit at Womack Army Hospital. " She describes the annual training at hospitals on other army bases; her family's reaction to her joining the military; conducting evaluations and teaching in the army compared to civilian work; her opinion of the feminist movement and the treatment of women in the military and civilian work. " Venegoni details her move in 1986 with Modigh to Richmond, Virginia; becoming a full-time PhD nursing student at Virginia Commonwealth University [VCU]; being called to active duty in 1991 for Operation Desert Storm; reporting to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and retraining the reserve and National Guard corpsmen on patient care; and defending her dissertation while on active duty. She reflects on what lessons they learned from Desert Storm and the changes in the military over the 23 years she served;. She discusses why she retired in 1995 from the Army Nurse Corps reserves at the rank of colonel. She gives her opinion on the military as a career, the role women should play in the military; the importance of basic training for reservists; and her fears when she was called into active duty. " Venegoni then gives a joint interview with Amie Modigh describing how they met; their teamwork and how that worked well for them in their military and civilian careers; how they were able to be assigned together when many friends and couples are not; their patriotism and pride in their military service; opinion of Muslim women in the U.S. military who want to wear the hijab; and how Modigh almost became a general and why she did not want that rank.
