Recipes for Living JEANNE HUGHES CHESNUT

My real name is Roberta Jean, I was named after my mom's two brothers, Robert and Eugene; but my parents intended for me to be called Jeanne. I am from Nebraska, and was born March 9, 1949, to Doug and Marcella Hughes. I was born in Tilden, the nearest hospital to Neligh, my home town.

Neligh is located right at the edge of the sand hills in Nebraska, and my family for four generations before me have been farmers. My family raises row crops, livestock and hay.

I have two brothers-Ted is nearest to my age, and Scott is the family baby, and they are both farmers. I have one sister, Jayne. Our brother, Mark, was killed in a gun accident when he was twelve (September, 1971). I was 21, and Paul and I had been married less than a year.

My entire childhood was spent on the farm. I attended Black Lake School, District 56 of Antelope County, (a one room country school) from kindergarten through 8th grade. I had one classmate, Loree Mosel, for all my elementary years. What an interesting contrast from present day concerns about class size. I had only three teachers all those years. Actually, in one room schools, the older kids taught the younger students a lot, so when I say we had only three teachers, I mean only three salaried teachers.

The Christmas program was a highlight of the year. We did wonderful productions with lots of decorations, music, and plays. The older students were in charge and always tried hard to see that the littlest tiniest ones had their pick of what they wanted to do in the program. I remember encouraging them to think of what they were really good at. The teacher was mainly a facilitator and made it possible for us to carry out our plans. ·

In the second semester of second grade, Loree and I worked on 3rd grade studies and had them completed by the end of the school year. After conferencing with our parents, the teacher decided we should just go right into 4th grade in the fall. This early promotion had positive and negative outcomes. It made me very self-assured that I could do the work, that I was capable
and intelligent; but socially it had disadvantages. Loree and I were the youngest in our high school class and it really irritated me that I couldn't get my Driver's License until I was a junior in high school. I knew I had the skills and judgment, but the law didn't recognize it.

A good deal of who I am was formulated in that country school. Even now, enjoy really close relationships with people of varying ages and I am a stronger individual when I work with a group versus alone.

Most of my self-sufficiency was built during those years, too. I was the oldest of the five children. Mom didn't work away from home, but she certainly was always busy. We always had chickens-a big laying flock and ones to butcher for the freezer. Lots of plucking (yuck!). Even now at age 70, Mom still raises three batches of 1,000 chickens each and sells them. My sister says, "The year I left home, Mom bought a chicken picker, roto tiller and dish washer."

We had a huge garden and an orchard. Of course that led to canning, freezing, and jelly making. Mom had a hard time letting things go to waste and often she had us pick extra produce for family and friends. We didn't mind picking vegetables and fruits and giving them to family, but we thought some of our other friends could just as well have their own garden. One hot sweaty day as Ted and I were crawling up and down the bean rows picking for some "townie" person, we decided we wouldn't have to do it again that summer if we pulled the blossoms off as we picked the beans. And guess what!! We were right and for ever after Mom was always amazed that when we were sick of picking beans, the plants just stopped producing!

Because I was the oldest, I was put in charge of the house while Mom was gardening, or helping in the field. Having younger children to take care of made me curious about and interested in children-how they develop, why some come from incorrigible situations with lots of resiliency and others not. I remember asking Mom if we were poor and she said, "Do you think we are?” My concept of poor was not having enough to eat and I didn't know any kids at our school that didn't have plenty in their dinner buckets. When I hear now of children in our town who go to school hungry, I wonder if it is a resource issue, a pride issue, or a resourcefulness issue. Presently, I am involved in a community-wide initiative that will enhance the resiliency of children. I find myself thinking back and comparing.

As I was growing up, my best friends were and still are, my cousins. We lived geographically close and certainly grew to be kindred spirits. We worked on 4-H projects together, built a log cabin in the shelter belt, held torrid croquet and bad mitten tournaments, took bike picnics, and hundreds of other adventures. Our good times continue now even as we are parenting children of our own. When making plans to travel back to Nebraska, I always try to organize it around times my cousins will be home, too. I guess it1s pretty amazing to me how this one little Hughes / Lundquist family have by now touched thousands of people all over the world by who we are and how we were taught to do things.

I graduated from High School in 1966 and went to Mercy School of Nursing in Sioux City, Iowa. I knew I should be looking for a nursing program that would give me a degree when I finished, but there was only one in Nebraska and it wasn't streamlined. It would have taken me five years to complete and I needed to be earning sooner than that. For that reason, I chose the three-year diploma program.

It was an interesting experience to be the first cousin in my family to leave home. I was really only 100 miles away, but because I was in a different state, I felt more far-removed. It was really interesting to meet new friends who had graduated from Kingsley-Pierson, or Sac City-Lytton-big consolidated schools that I had only heard about on KTIV-TV. We were a girls only" school and the more I got acquainted the more I could see that we had a lot of things in common and few differences.

It was at Mercy where I had my first "in your face" experiences of diversity. My family was Protestant and Mercy (and most of its clients) was Catholic; I was from Nebraska and the majority of these students were Iowans, so it was my first experience being a minority. I came away with positive experiences, which I'm sure has impacted the way I view diverse situations even now.

The relationships I formed at Mercy were and are really close. Those close ties evolve when you "live and die" together and we literally did sit on the pulse of the community. A nurse training is a different experience when compared to other vocational or college programs. Some college students are concerned with grade point as it might affect their social standing or ability to land a "plum" of a job. We were concerned about learning the material because we knew someone's life would depend on it. I don't think many other 19 year-olds experience or develop that sense of responsibility to humanity.

Throughout my nursing career (some 30 years now) I have experienced the really broad range of interaction with people. I've been proposed to by a 12 year-old boy, flashed by elderly men, asked to name a young mother's new baby, cried with the young father as he realized he would not survive his cancer, prayed for a middle-aged guy who had a severe heart attack and have been able to enjoy watching him with his grandchildren, delivered a baby on my birthday and had it named after me, resuscitated a baby and was able to discuss it with him as an adult, sneezed on by a Senator, and have been thrown up on by people of all ages. When you work a shift and help someone be born and someone die, you have a strong sense that there is a real intentional cycle in the way God created things.

My time at Mercy was such an intense experience that I didn't have time to be very involved socially. On Leap Day, 1968, 1 was introduced to Paul Chesnut. I had a blind date with him arranged by the girl next door. She was engaged to a senior at Buena Vista College and Paul was his roommate.

Paul had graduated at the semester, and knew that he was 1-A in Madison County, so had not done any job hunting. Young people reading this will not understand how pervasive the draft was in shaping our lives. Your draft number was an important bit of biographical data, shared with many others. Paul had known for months that as soon as he graduated from college he would immediately become 1-A and be the next man drafted from Madison County. He therefore continued to work at his part-time college job in the Storm Lake Fire Department until he got drafted and left in June, 1968.

I was a junior at Mercy at that time. I think we both knew we would marry some day, but we didn't make definite plans because of his service obligations. We talked about the possible outcome of a "war zone" tour of duty and decided if he should be killed, my education would be more important than ever. He was drafted for a two year period and sent to Ft. Bliss, Texas, for Basic Training. Then he went to Ft. Benning, Georgia, as a Psychiatric Social Worker and finally to Yokohama, Japan. While in Japan he was pulled to Vietnam twice, due to casualties of Medical people.

Probably one of the more exciting days in my life was the day he came home from Basic Training. I'll never forget his coming to Sioux City to see me. He had changed so much-he had a deeper tan, was thinner, and had a different outlook on the way his life was to go. I think it was related to the draft. He had dreaded it for so long that it was good to have it finally settled.

While Paul was stationed in Japan, I finished my last year at Mercy. My graduation day in May, 1969, was another all time big day for me. Our schooling was really an intense experience. Students were flunked out two weeks before graduation. In order to protect myself from disappointment in case that happened to me, I hadn't really allowed myself any thoughts of graduation.

I was the first of all my cousins to graduate from college and they responded with a tremendous outpouring of attendance at the ceremony. The ceremonial dress of a Mercy nurse is the cuffed pointed cap, white uniform and a black wool cape lined in red. I must say, I looked and felt stunning. The pictures of my cousins with me that day are ones I really cherish. They all have such looks of awe and adoration. I am sure that my accomplishments at that time influenced their ability to see themselves as capable and to grasp the thought that through hardwork, anything is attainable.

After graduation I got a job as a nurse supervisor in a regional mental health center in Norfolk, Nebraska. I was responsible for three patient care units staffed by 35 paraprofessionals.

One of my units was the locked unit for women for the entire state of Nebraska. As I think back on it, it is amazing that health-care administrators would trust a 20 year-old college girl with that kind of responsibility. The patients in my care had been in the state hospital for long periods of time--some as long as forty years. I don't remember feeling at all nervous about the responsibility, just extremely capable and competent.

Professional staffing for these patient care units in addition to myself was a young psychiatrist and a newly graduated Summa Cum Laude social worker. We soon discovered that many resources for· these long-term patients had been diverted to the more acutely ill. I was outraged at the lack of staff and amenities provided, as were my new colleagues, and we vowed to shift the perception of administration at this hospital. Increased focus and more aggressive treatment was a must for these chronically ill women.

We quickly applied for research status and each of us began combing the journals of our specialty to find the newest programs and drugs that were seen as helpful to chronically ill women. An increase in pharmacologic development was apparent and one of our units became the research facility for the development of lithium treatment of manic depression in women.

Supervising this research project involved a lot of extra work from the nursing perspective and my staff of 35 quickly rose to the challenge. We had long and thorough discussions with individual patients who would be involved and hoped we could begin to restore some hope for a normal life for them. By taking on the extra burden of this research project, I felt I had made a significant contribution, not just to the lives of those women that were placed in my care, but to the mental health field in general.

Once we began receiving attention from the research project, hospital administrators began refocusing funds and additional staff to my units and many wonderful things began to happen. We had read in the research about the success of transitional living projects for women. As their mental health symptoms began to fade (due to the new drugs), it became easier for them to hold jobs in the community and then to begin thinking of living outside the hospital: We decided we wanted to pursue a project like that.

Joan, the social worker, and I began formulating ideas of how this could evolve. One night, as we were on a walk to the Dairy Queen, we spotted this lovely old house on 1st Ave. and we thought it just the place for the "Penthouse" project. The house was actually for sale, but Joan made a few calls and convinced the owner to rent it to us. Dr. Wengert was at an international conference and we couldn't get the state system to come through with any money for rent without him. We knew that if we waited, the house would be rented to someone else. What could we do?

Simple solution-we each withdrew $150 from our personal savings and retained the house until Dr. Wengert got back in the country. When we met with him to discuss our progress, he had second thoughts about extended international travel in the future. It was exciting to begin transitioning these women into the rest of their lives. Basically, they weren't going to have "the rest of their lives" if they remained hospitalized. As a young professional, I felt very affirmed.

Paul returned from the Army in May, 1970, with no clue about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. We had both dated others in the interim, but still felt the spark of our relationship. We were married December 27, 1970, in Neligh. Mom made our wedding cake and froze it (completely decorated) at the locker. My aunts gathered and helped us do the mints, and I had several showers.

We moved to Ames, Iowa, where Paul had decided to take the professional semesters, and become a teacher. I was charge nurse in the ER (emergency room) at Mary Greeley Hospital and eventually moved to the Mental Health Unit. The environment of Ames was very invigorating, both socially and professionally. When we moved to Osceola two years later, we both had culture shock.

Paul made application for teaching positions in every Iowa town with a population of 2000-5000 people. Male elementary teachers were rare. From those applications he had nine interviews and seven job offers. I often wonder how our lives would have been different if we had chosen Clarion, Eagle Grove, or Goldfield as our first real home. We chose Osceola because it offered us a place geographically close to his family: Forty miles let us have an enjoyable close relationship with his family without being in each others' "soup."

During these early days of our marriage, I really had the opportunity to become well acquainted and comfortable with Paul's folks, Dr. Paul and Anjean Chestnut. We often met for dinner, or took short overnight camping trips together. Doc was a great cook but it quickly became apparent that he added tobasco sauce to everything. He was making a new dressing recipe at Thanksgiving one year, and decided to do the wheat in the pressure cooker. We were all standing around, having wine and good conversation when the lid blew off the pressure cooker. I learned something about pressure cookers that day as we were scraping wheat off the ceiling.

After accepting the job here at Clarke, we began to learn what we could about Osceola. There was an instance when I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Channel 8 was doing a local color" spot and featured John Stearns (then Sheriff) and some of his fellow fiddlers sitting in the old gas station in Murray. They were really playing up a storm and to someone who didn't know the whole story it really looked like something out of the movie "Deliverance."

We moved to our first real house on South Jackson Street (next to the motel). The first friends we made were Ned and Ruth McCarty who lived in the first house north of us. Ruth brought a loaf of fresh bread and found me on the couch crying from homesickness and still wondering what had gotten me into. We enjoyed many holiday celebrations with their family and they gave us a real sense of welcome to the community.

I easily found a job at Clarke County Hospital. The main drawback was the 11-7 p.m. shift I enjoyed what I did and the people, but I am not a night person. I learned a great deal professionally, because practice in a small hospital is extremely varied. I remember being the charge nurse on a Saturday night with an O.B. (obstetrics case) nearly ready to deliver when a call came that a two-car accident had occurred and at least four victims were on their way in. Can you believe I was still wondering what I had gotten myself into?

The local firemen quickly identified Paul as a good candidate for membership in their department. We made close friends with other families, but particularly with Con and Karen Smith and their girls.

My mother-in-law is a pretty smart woman. As a physician's wife, she too had learned what it was like to be stranded by your husband without a moment's notice. I remember her saying, "If they're on call you have to realize you can’t depend on them. Take your own car and make them give you half the cash." There were times I didn't do that and had to seek rides home from the police, gas station attendants, and other people I didn't really know very well because Paul had taken off on a fire call and left me stranded. I've made plenty of trips back to every restaurant in town to pay for meals that he left in the middle of (and left me financially embarrassed). I was always glad they trusted me to come back and pay because I don't like doing dishes that much.

By 1977, we had a little nest egg gathered for our first house. Until that time both of us had worked two jobs and saved as much as we could. We looked at houses everywhere in town, but decided we wanted to build rather that purchase and remodel. We were lucky enough to get a lot at 725 S. Jackson that had trees and was paved on both sides. We chose McBroom Construction as contractors and have been pleased with their work. We moved here in November of 1979.

During the time we were building the house, I was still working two jobs. I wrote a grant through Head Start to go back to school for my degree, and to my surprise, it got funded. We've heard horror stories from other couples about stress during the building process, but being really busy must have helped us.

Until this time in our marriage we talked about parenting our own children, but in the sense of lf sometime in the future". Paul wasn't sure he had a personality that kids liked, so questioned parenting our own. I always found that to be a ridiculous, unfounded thought on his part. During the summer it wasn't unusual for him to get several calls a day from students indicating to me their fondness for him. The attachment his students had for him has continued and carried over to our nieces and nephews and then to our own kids.

Just as I was finishing Grand View, we began thinking about child-rearing in a more present tense. We had been married 11 years and were sure it must be long enough to silence the gossips in both of our home towns. Surely they had figured out that we didn't have to get married!!!

Unfortunately, our first pregnancy ended in an intrauterine death (28 weeks of gestation) of a little boy with red hair, Paul Mark. Paul and I were both devastated and no reason for death was determined. The situation became more complicated when Paul's Dad (Dr. Paul Foster Chesnut, MD.) died the same week (September 4, 1980). I was sure this just couldn't be happening to us. The rest of 1980 was really tough for me, but maybe more difficult for Paul. Not only had he lost something important representing the past, but the future as well. Our doctors told us another pregnancy was perfectly in order but like many things, when you are in a hurry for something to happen, it doesn't happen quickly.

However, January 12, 1982, 9:36a.m. was another big day for us. Paul Jackson Chesnut was born to us the middle of a blizzard, red hair, loud voice and 8 lbs. 8 ounces of him (21inches). Paul's first comment (in sort of a gasp) was "His eyes look just like my Dad's". (The Chesnut men all tend to resemble one another with a certain look about their eyes.)

The grandparents were excited and relieved at the safe delivery, but everyone was snowed in. Jack had to wait 2 days to meet his "Granny Annie" (Anjean Chesnut), and a whole week to meet his Grandpa and Grandma Hughes. Both Grandmas came and stayed a week with us and then Grandma Hughes got snowed in with us for a few days longer.

When Jack was three, we had another baby that died at full term. This red haired boy was very large (11 lbs. 2 ounces and 23 inches long) and still no explanation as to cause of death. As a nurse, I certainly was considering gestational diabetes as a cause, but had not been screened for it. We referred ourselves to the genetics clinic at the University of Iowa for consultation before we even considered a 4th pregnancy. Four pregnancies in six years might be too much for a younger woman and I was not about to risk being unable to raise the child I had. I fully expected we might have to accept the unacceptable-that we should not consider having another child. The Doc's at U of I encouraged us to try for a 4th pregnancy and felt certain I would be a positive screen for gestational diabetes. My last pregnancy was deemed "high risk" and I was monitored very closely.

On July I8, I986, (Granny Annie's Birthday), Joseph Wagner Chesnut was born by c section. He was red-haired, robust, 9 lbs. 10 ounces and 21 inches long. Even though he was healthy enough at first glance, the nurses were concerned about his bluish color. I remember it as if it was yesterday. I was talking to Chris Paul on the phone when the nurse came in and said "Hang up quickly! Your baby is not doing well!" I felt as if I'd had this conversation before.

Joe was moved quickly to the Peds Intensive Care. The working diagnosis was "transposition of the great arteries" (TGA, meaning his pulmonary vein and aorta were in transposed positions creating dual circulatory systems. One was circulating to the body and back to the heart while the other one continually circulated through the lung fields. One portion of the blood volume was hyper oxygenated and the other, oxygen depleted.) That evening while being ventilated, stabilized and baptized, he was flown by "Life Flight" helicopter to University Hospital in Iowa City for confirmation of the diagnosis. Paul and David Oldham (our brother in-law) drove down and stayed with him during the heart catheterization and other diagnostic procedures. The diagnosis of TGA was confirmed with recommendation of corrective surgery in 6-12 months.

As it turned out, Joe had to have his corrective surgery (Sennings procedure) at three months-of-age. He was hospitalized on October 20, 1986, and returned home February 10, 1987. Due to his small size he had chylothorax as a long term complication and had a series of seven chest tubes over the course of 17 weeks and a second surgery (R thoracotomy) on December 14, 1986.

During our stay in Iowa City, the Osceola community really supported us as only a small town does. The Firemen and another community group both had fund raisers for us-what a humbling experience.

The entire Methodist church was praying and the TLC Sunday School class did more for us than I even knew. They came and cleaned the house, sent cards and made phone calls, offered Care for Jack, helped with transportation, and even filled the fridge and cupboards with groceries. Jack's 5th birthday came during this time. Even though we had a party in Iowa City with his Ronald McDonald House friend, I was particularly bummed out that he wouldn't be celebrating ON his birthday. Not to fear!! The Seebergers had a party for him on the night of his birthday, complete with presents, a decorated cake and pictures for Mom. They obviously knew how to make it a great birthday for me.

Of all the experiences I have had in my life, Joe's hospitalization has pointed out most precisely that all of our lives just hang by a thread. At any moment an incident could happen to change things forever. Due to this experience I've changed the things I value and the activities on which I'm willing to expend resources (time, energy, and money). Marriage and parenting children have added more depth and richness to both my personal and professional life than I ever expected. I've tried to be ready in case the Lord should come to my door at any time of day.

It was at this time in my life I thought seriously about giving up nursing. I was burned out at clinical practice and felt trapped in an unresponsive environment. I was interested in program development and innovative nursing challenges but working in a spot that valued neither. I noticed an ad in the newspaper for a position entitled "Community Prevention Specialist" and it sounded like a way to use my old skills in a new way-in a more flexible and diverse manner.

I interviewed and was told later that I overshadowed a Nun to get the job. Having gone to a parochial school, I got a chuckle out of that. I took the position and began in August, 1985. Our source of funding was a contract through Iowa Department of Public Health. My main tasks were program development and innovative prevention programming related to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. We cover eight south central/southwestern Iowa counties.

We have introduced schools and communities to newly researched concepts related to asset development and enhancement in students-not a program, but an initiative. What we're talking about is a new way of thinking, and a return to a former way of life. There is a movement forward with this initiative in a partnership involving families, youth, schools, churches, community organizations, and the business community. Can it be the dawning of a new day, at least a partial solution to problems?