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A Passion for History
Donor shares her commitment to nursing history with UVA
Posted 05/18/09
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From left to right: Arlene Keeling, Dean Dorrie Fontaine, and Eleanor Bjoring share stories during the dedication ceremony at the Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry.
Photo by Dory Hulse
In 1969, Eleanor Crowder Bjoring, Ph.D., declared her intention to become a nurse historian. She had already proven herself in the field, having served as a U.S. Air Force flight nurse both in the U.S. and Korea, a disaster relief polio nurse during the 1952 polio epidemic, and a nursing instructor in India, among other professional assignments.
But, when she returned to the University of Texas (UT) for her baccalaureate degree, she discovered what would become her true passion—uncovering and teaching the history of the nursing profession.
“I lucked into the UT history department, and one of my professors assigned me a paper on Florence Nightingale. Initially, I wasn’t that excited, but then I was given access to the research library. It really opened my eyes to what has become my life’s work,” Bjoring says. “I’d say I’m probably a better nurse historian than a nurse.”
World War I Red Cross nurses on the battlefield with wounded soldiers. Photo courtesy of the Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry's Keeling Collection.
Gifts like Bjoring's allow the Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry to continue the preservation, study, and dissemination of nursing history. Learn more about the center—and view a sampling of its extensive collection—on the center's Web site.
After a long and distinguished scholarly career, Bjoring retired to San Antonio, Texas, in 1996, but has continued to publish and support her passion philanthropically. A long-time supporter of the UVA School of Nursing's Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry (CNHI), she made a generous gift to the center through a charitable IRA rollover in the fall of 2008.
Arlene Keeling, Ph.D., R.N., director of the CNHI, smiles as she recalls receiving a call from Bjoring last fall. “She told me she liked what we were doing up here in Virginia, wanted to make a donation of $100,000, and ‘would I be interested?’”
Needless to say, Keeling was delighted, and heartened to move the center closer to reaching its endowment goal of $1.2 million.
“This gift is a strong statement of support for the work of the CNHI,” says Keeling. “Eleanor Bjoring clearly shares our belief that the lessons of nursing’s past can be invaluable tools to guide nursing practice today and in the future.”
The CNHI is one of only two nursing history centers in the nation. Bjoring knows from personal experience the struggles such centers often face.
“Nursing history centers are usually not well-funded,” Bjoring says. “I would love to see centers like the CNHI perpetuated, and I was happy to give.”
Last year, the CNHI moved to a larger space on the first floor of McLeod Hall. To honor Bjoring’s generosity, the center’s conference room was named in her honor.
