Portrait of a Male Nurse

Jerked from my own thoughts, I suddenly looked up and asked, “Hey, Dad, what’s the best choice you made when you were young?” Without a pause, he answered me, “I joined the Air Force” and laughed at himself a bit. Coming from my father, the answer I expected was a long-drawn out-pondering-each-side-and-not-making-judgments-quickly sort of an answer. I was surprised at his rare succinctness.  When reflecting on it later, I realized how connected my dad is to the Uniformed Services of America, and how his partnership with them has been a foothold in our family all of my life and has guided my dad in many of the important choices that he’s made in his life.

Kevin Elker was an eighteen year old boy from Moorhead, Minnesota with a high school diploma in one hand and few options ahead of him. He determined that he wanted to go to college, but his family was not well-off, and he knew that he would have to earn his own way. Like many teenagers, the obvious choice was to join the army, which offered to repay on his school loans. Kevin had always been a quirky person, and when he joined the army he told them that he had really enjoyed cooking in home economics class, so they appointed him as a cook. He was also a cook at a pancake house in town and worked his first nursing home job. After a year of hard work, Kevin packed up and made the short journey to Bemidji, MN, to study at Oak Hills Bible College, a tiny private school, where Kevin received an associate’s degree in Biblical studies. He told me that at the time he wanted to learn about what he believed, and he did—some, but in some ways, more importantly, he confided in me that he learned how to discuss things with people, understanding their thoughts about the world and how to explain your own thoughts to others. Funny enough, when he was studying meticulously for his nursing degree at Winona State University, one of his professors asked him in amazement after a long class, “Kevin, where did you learn to think like this?” My father answered candidly, “At Bible College, Professor."

After three years of hard studying in Winona, Kevin and his wife, Kristi, hopped into the car on graduation day and drove north, back to Bemidji.  Kevin strove determinedly in the winter wasteland of Bemidji, but when talking to me, he reminisced about his discouragement and discontent with his job as a nurse at the local hospital. However, several glorious things did happen during this time—the birth of his two children, Mackenzie in 1995 and Isaak in 1996.

Two and a half years later, the armed forces reentered his life, offering a new chance as a nurse in Dayton, Ohio. He took a leap, packed up his small family, and turned towards a new chapter of life. Kevin and his family lived on Air Force base housing, a grouping of small disheveled townhouses which formed close-knit, if very temporal, communities of people from many different races, jobs, and walks of life. Kevin explained a bit about the wonderful atmosphere that the Air Force can foster, saying, “In the Air Force, there are people of all different races and religions, yet people first and foremost consider themselves to be ‘army people.’ Because of this people view each other differently and put many of their personal prejudices aside.” During this time, Kevin met and worked with many different kinds of people, expanding his experience with people greatly. Although He lived in Ohio for only five years, he received two promotions, advancing from second lieutenant to first lieutenant and then again from first lieutenant to captain. Although Kevin’s time in Ohio was very valuable, it was not a permanent way to live. Kevin and his family made many close friends, but people never stayed put for long in the Air Force, and after five years he decided to move back to Minnesota where his family lived. The Air Force had helped him to make great strides in his career and would continue to do so back in Minnesota, if in an absolutely unexpected way.

When Kevin returned to Minnesota, settling in Rochester, a city known nationwide for it medical community, he did not apply for a job at the renowned Mayo Hospital. Nor did he take a job at St. Mary’s Clinic or Olmsted Medical Center. My father took a job at the prison.

Kevin’s current job, which is still a branch of the armed forces, The Uniformed Public Health Services, as a Wound Care Specialist at the Federal Medical Center, though a far departure from his other jobs at nursing homes and in care units, was perfectly suited to him. He has always had a great sense of humor, which he uses daily when dealing with difficult patients. My father said his favorite part of being a nurse is that, “It’s a wonderful blend of science and compassion.” At the prison, this takes on a whole new meaning. Many times, humor is his compassion. One of his most common responses to unresponsive patients is, “I’m not your mama.” Hardly a week goes by where a conflict is not resolved by singing some crazy song, such as “You just call, and I’ll be there...” Kevin’s methods are far from traditional, and yet strangely effective. The convicts always know what is expected.  Although his job has its quirks, it is also very rewarding to see a patient, who has had a very destructive diabetic foot ulcer or a pressure ulcer, heal after a long, grueling treatment.

Kevin has worked extremely hard to get to his current position, studying for three years in graduate school before receiving his Master’s Degree of Science in nursing as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. Because of his work in this area, he gained the expertise to do research in the field, which he has been able to apply to his practice. Kevin is definitely a man interested in learning more about his field, whether or not he’s studying for graduate school or doing personal research. His focus as a nurse is to help his patients to heal and help his staff to learn to do their job better. Most importantly, he knows that he doesn’t have all of the answers and keeps pushing for improvement at the Federal Medical Center, by communication clearly with those around him, sometimes firmly, sometimes humorously, but always with compassion, and this is what makes him, in his own humorous words, a priceless “male nurse.”

Hattie Bush: Joining the Ranks of Rosie the Riveter

Just as the roaring twenties rolled around the corner, my great-grandmother, Hattie Simmons Bush arrived in the world on May 10, 1922. Growing up the middle child of nine children, Hattie was an easy going girl, who worked hard and played harder. She grew up on a farm in Pisgah, Iowa, where her family raised sheep, pigs, and cows. When Hattie was small, she and her older sister, Delores, loved to ride their pony, Dixie, who had a crippled foot, but still gave the girls plenty of excitement. Before Christmas, they would go out to the pasture and pick out a tree, which they would decorate with candles.

Hattie graduated with a class of eighteen students from Pisgah High School in 1940—one year before the United States joined the war—with aspirations of becoming a hair stylist. The next year, while she was attending beauty school in Sioux City, Iowa, she met Frank Bush at a social dance in town. Before the year was out, they were planning to get married. However, when tragedy struck at Pearl Harbor and the United States jumped headlong into World War II, Frank was drafted into the Army Air Force Ground Troops and sent to California to the Air Base in the mountains near Victorville.

Loathe to be separated from her newly found beau, Hattie packed her bags and made the long trek to California to live with her aunt. In Victorville, Hattie met Joellen and decided to move out of her aunt’s house and rent an apartment with her new friend.  Not long after, Joellen informed Hattie of a job opening at an airplane factory. When I asked my grandmother why she chose this job, she answered with a laugh, “Well, I had to support myself!” Hattie and Joellen worked there for good wages, in a group of women assigned to put parts on the lower section of the airplanes. Because many men were drafted into the army, there were many opportunities for women to acquire jobs that were usually reserved for men. Who would imagine that twenty-year old girl from a small farm in Iowa, who had graduated from high school only two years before, would be in California helping to build airplanes?

Too soon, news came that Frank was to be deployed to England were he would be stationed at an Army Air Force base. Before he flew out, Frank and Hattie were married in January of 1944. They made their vows before a priest in the chapel on Sheppard Army Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, a decidedly non-frilly affair, with only one other friend of Frank’s present and without any wedding dress or veil. My great-grandmother reminisced that she wasn’t disappointed by the ceremony, but was simply ecstatic to be married before Frank left. It would be two years before she saw him again.

The newly-named Mrs. Hattie Bush moved back to Iowa, and because of her experience at the factory in California, was lucky to get a job working at another airplane factory in Sergent Bluff. She passed the time while Frank was in England by keeping busy. She still went to dances with her girlfriends, where there were plenty of soldiers to dance with. Hattie also went to the movies, although she was always disgruntled that the films were so often about the war that she was trying so hard to forget. She worked hard to support herself while Frank was away and waited impatiently for his return. Like many women, she waited for news of the war’s end, listening closely to her radio and watching every headline. When the news arrived in September, 1945, Hattie was overjoyed. It wouldn’t be long before her husband, Frank, would be home, and they could begin their marriage together, unfettered by war any longer.

The course of my great-grandmother’s life was significantly altered by World War II. If America had never joined the war, Hattie almost surely would never have moved to California, worked in an airplane factory, or been married on an Army Air Force Base, but like so many women of the 1940s, she established her independence during the war by joining the forces of “Rosie the Riveter.”

Teacher of Imagination

As my mother turned from her digital scrapbooking to answer my question, she looked around the room, which had poetry on the walls, important sayings on the bulletin board, pictures, a feather theatre mask, and witty postcards, and thought over my question, “What’s something interesting about you mom?” before she answered with, “I guess I like to be creative!”

          

I decided to interview my mother because she is one of the most interesting people I know. One thing about my mother is that she loves to write. Actually she loves anything and everything that takes imagination to enjoy. When I wake up in the morning, she is oftentimes working on some project on her computer, and when I go to bed at about midnight, she is usually downstairs working on some other creative hobby. She has two main creative periods in her life: her creative hobbies as a youth and her present imaginative projects as a stay at home mom of two children.

            

When she was a small child, my mother’s favorite activity was arts and crafts. While she explained to me about what she did on Valentine’s Day, one of her favorite days of third grade, her eyes lit up as she told me what she did that day. She woke up to walk two blocks to the Harney Elementary, where she made a Valentine’s box by covering a shoe box with construction paper and making little tissue paper flowers and little pink and red hearts to cover the box with, and when she was done with her Valentine masterpiece,  she chose her favorite glitter glue and wrote her name in huge sprawling letters. So even as a young kid, my mother has always had a passion for expressing herself with the things she can make.  As a freshman in high school,  my mother decided to attempt theater as one more way to enjoy her love for being creative. She explained that the first play she auditioned for was the musical The Wizard of Oz, and she grinned to herself as she told me that loved dressing up in her green munchkin outfit and singing in a high pitched, squeaky voice as the munchkins welcomed Dorothy to their world. Auditioning for Harvey in her senior year, my mother then experienced her favorite part in a play when she received the part of Myrtle Mae, who is the spoiled niece of Elwood P. Dowd the main character in the play. She finally found a thing that she most passionately enjoyed doing while she was attending Winona State University to become an English major. This thing was poetry. From then on she was writing poetry in her free time and even began to present it at poetry readings on and off campus, and she got some of her poems published in a small poetry magazine. She then told me then began to tell me about one of her most exciting nights as a student at Winona State was being asked by the English department faculty to introduce Maya Angelou, author of the book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and future poet laureate of President Bill Clinton.  Before my mother introduced Ms. Angelou, she met her backstage and visited with her briefly.   Then when she left Winona and became a mother, her creative hobbies became more private.

            

One of her new hobbies became scrapbooking. She loved and still loves to preserve and show other people her family and their favorite memories. When she moved to Dayton, Ohio in 1997, she was the happy wife of an Air Force nurse and the mother of a two year old, my sister, and a one year old, me.  From then on, all of her creative juices were put towards teaching her kids to be imaginative. Whether it meant making Halloween costumes for her kids, building with Legos, or decorating eggs on Easter, she loved to do fun, artistic things with her two children, and she still does. Four years ago she also found a new hobby—blogging. In the last few years her thoughts, her feelings, her desires, and her experiences have made it on to her blog. Her face then lit up as she told me she found a way to print her blog off the internet so she can have her very own book of her very own writing. Diligently keeping a prayer journal in the last few years, she also explained that she loves to write her thoughts to God down on paper so that she can look back on what she has written and see how her beliefs have changed about life. Currently, she has one big creative project going on—the play A Christmas Carol.  She is currently is working on making display different Christmas “eras” to set up in the theatre, which means lots of shopping for things from lots of different eras, everything from a Victorian era to an 1970s era. She will also be playing the part of Agnes, the charwoman, in the production of The Christmas Carol this winter season, which she is quite excited about.

            

This is my mother in a nutshell. She is a passionate teacher, and she has a passion for learning from poetry and other arts. When she was young she loved to make crafts and her favorite birthday present as a child was a journal that she could write her thoughts down in. In high school she loved theatre and in college she loved poetry and creative writing. As a mother she has loved blogging, prayer journaling, stamping, scrapbooking, and teaching her kids about the importance of being curious. As she sat there and got more caught up in the story she also stated one of the most important things to her is “not just liking a story, but discussing what makes it a good story, and looking at a writer’s style of expressing himself.” With that, she sat back and said, “Isaak, I really need to get back to my project!” This is my mother who has been the most passionate, creative, brilliant teacher I have ever had.

Phil Doesn't Need a Degree

Phil Lindskog was born in Rochester, Minnesota on March 31, 1989 and grew up in a Christian household with his parents. He is now nineteen years old and in college so he can go into youth ministry because he has a great talent for working with teenagers. Phil loves Mountain Dew and will drink it whenever he has the option. His favorite things to do are listen to music, which he does constantly, and watch anything with Will Ferrell in it. Phil loves to laugh, and people get a welcomed feeling when they meet him. Phil loves talking to God and spending time with Him more than anything else in the world.

Attending Christ Community Church since he was nine years old, Phil goes every week and volunteers joyfully with the youth. Occasionally, he works as a janitor at church and sometimes works with the preschool, Kingdom Kids, in the summer. While Phil is busy with school, he takes a lot of time to help out with the seventh grade boys at youth group. Phil also has a great love for music and is in charge of a youth worship band at church, which, as an act of service Sunday mornings, helps elementary children worship God through singing.

Going to a Christian college, Crossroads, in Rochester, Minnesota, Phil is continually busy with homework. While someday he hopes to go into ministry because of his love for Jesus and his gifts with middle schoolers, Phil is currently in his fifth semester at school and is working hard on a degree of ministry with youth and family. Obviously it does not require a college degree to love people and volunteer time, which Phil has been doing for years!

Nate Stenholtz: Everyday Hero

Avid reader, consumer of French-pressed coffee, and follower of Jesus, Nate Stenholtz is a great friend whose normal life displays the supernatural work of Someone bigger. Nate was born in 1976 in North Dakota, although his family lived across the border in Wyoming. For most of his life, Nate has lived in Minnesota. Nate’s family is immensely important to him. Inside the church or outside, he lives as a missional Christian in obedience to God. Sharing his life and talents with teenagers and learning from them, Nate is a middle school youth pastor.
Nate is a family man. Marrying Kristin Cave in 1998, Nate firmly says that this event was one of the most important in his entire life. Excitingly, Elise Anastasia Stenholtz entered the world in 2003 with Aubrey Joy Stenholtz following in 2005. Nate adores his two daughters and loves to spend time with them every night by reading stories to them. While Nate’s family spends time together, they especially enjoy experiencing new things together and traveling to new places. In about five years, when the girls are older, Nate and Kristin plan to go on a family mission trip together because they love to travel and also want to further God‘s kingdom. Nate Stenholtz, who is a wonderful father and husband, loves his family and spending time with them.
Nate Stenholtz is no stranger to missions. In Nate’s early teenage years he treated baseball like his god and played constantly. When Nate met Jesus Christ, who changed his life, he was asked to do some difficult things. Asking Nate to quit baseball and go to Russia for a month, Jesus clearly had a different plan for Nate’s life than Nate did. Nate obeyed God. Significantly effecting Nate’s life, the trip to Russia was very important to Nate, and his experiences helped the way he now views the world. Since the mission trip to Russia, Nate has also been to parts of the U.S. and throughout parts of Europe, such as Finland. Nate hopes to return to Russia someday.
Although Nate has traveled to many far places, his mission field is not limited to across the ocean. Loving and serving many in his community, Nate has a heart for helping others and learning from others, especially teenagers.
Because Nate, who is exceedingly friendly and extremely inviting, enjoys interacting with people, he does a fabulous job as middle school youth pastor. Nate’s first youth pastor job was when he was twenty-two and newly married at a small church in Marshall, Minnesota. Throughout the years, Nate has worked at different churches, but now he is the youth pastor at Christ Community Church in Rochester Minnesota. Journeying with students in their relationships with God is Nate’s favorite part of being a youth pastor.
Nate loves his beautiful wife, Kristin, and his two girls, Elise and Aubrey.  Although Nate may seem like a normal man with a regular job as a middle school youth pastor, he is a hero because he unselfishly loves others.