CONTENTED RESIDENT OF THE WESTWARD HO
by Gerry Hitt
from HO HAPPENINGS, May/June 2000
Beulah and Killer, neighbors and best of friends. Together they know and greet everyone at the Westward Ho. |
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| A look back into her life reveals that Beulah spent most of her work life as a nurse, so her attitude of service comes naturally. She is from Illinois, north of St. Louis. At seven years old she experienced a mysterious illness the doctors decided later may have been polio. She remembers her older brothers teaching her to walk again. One leg was left shorter than the other one, which she says did not slow her down at all. Underage, Beaulah went to work in a shoe factory, and earned 68 cents an hour, later raised to $1. She married and had two sons, but was widowed at 21. Her young husband died of another scourge of the times, pneumonia. From then on she was a single mother who decided to go back to school in her 30s to train as a LPN. Afterwards, she returned to work in the shoe factory as a nurse, dispensing first aid. She relocated to Burbank, California and worked for years in the Community Hospital. Her specialty became isolation nursing. She learned to "suit up" in order to attend highly contagious patients. One little boy came in with such a serious illness, the doctor warned her that if she contacted his disease, she would die. It was her decision to take the risk of caring for him. "Somebody had to do it," she says. The boy died, but she credits her training with keeping her safe. She ended her career with a shift to home nursing. When she retired at 65, she came to Arizona. In the Westward Ho, she is known as Killer's favorite babysitter. Erling relies on her to tend our well-known dog when he has to go somewhere. He says Killer must love her as much as he loves him, as he protects her fiercely from any suspicious callers. Killer carefully inspects her apartment each time he comes. And asks for water. He has noticed she does things a little differently from Erling, because she is a woman, which gives Beulah a laugh. Eighty years old, Beulah says she finally had a mysterious accident a year ago, during which she broke her spine without even knowing how she did it! She was able to tell the doctor she had not taken any medicine for 40 years! Blessed with a salty sense of humor, Beulah can enjoy a good laugh with you. She is a woman of her word, and she does not tolerate idle gossip. She gives "Our Home" stability with her good heart. |