Eileen Valinoti

“And now, as we finish up, we’ll need to put our blankets away. I want you to fold them like this,” announced my yoga teacher–a bit sternly, I thought. With swift, deft hands, she began to demonstrate. Something in the tone of her voice and the sharp jut of her chin brought me back to Miss Coyle…

Miss Mary Coyle RN was the nursing arts instructor in my first year of training, more than fifty years ago. She taught our group of thirty–twenty-seven eager eighteen-year-old women and three young nuns–the basic nursing skills: how to give a bed bath; administer an injection; prepare hot and cold compresses, etc. 

Twice a week, my classmates and I filed into her classroom, which was set up to resemble a sickroom. Its features included basins, bandage trays, a large bath thermometer and a hospital bed, on which reclined a lifelike mannequin whom we called “Mrs. Chase.”

One morning Miss Coyle announced that we were to learn how to make the hospital bed. 

Some of us yawned and shifted in our seats. 

Miss Coyle frowned. “A badly made bed is uncomfortable to lie in, and a wrinkled bottom sheet can lead to pressure