Louise Gallaway:  

Louise is from Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Louise is married. Louise's schools include Maumee High School, Fort Miami Elementary School, Newbury Elementary School. Louise later attended The Ohio State University (Nursing, Sociology). Louise works(ed) at Visiting Angels. What a boring description, certainly not written by me. A job offer for my husband was too good to turn down, so here we are in DH, MI. He just recently decided enough was enough and so has hung up his medical education shoes, and hopefully will be able to help me with my Visiting Angels Business. I not only work there, I own the business, which keeps me young at heart, as I try to provide help to seniors, some of them our age, as their abilities change. A few schools were left off, Union for kindergarten, and a month in the fourth grade. Those of you that were in Neva Knapp's fourth grade, I was that stranger that only stayed for four weeks, and then disappeared right before Halloween. Seems my mother had surgery, and I spent the month with Patsy McGhee's family. I didn't know that we would be back in Maumee for Jr. and Sr. High. Both my husband and I have been perpetual students, I have lost track of how many colleges and Universities he has attended and received degrees from, but for me in addition to OSU, I , also, have degrees from University of Toledo, and than I was a special student at Wayne State University. One of our first dates (present spouse) took us to the computer lab at UT. I didn't know then, how many hours that I would eventually spend in that lab. From the time that my mother was in the hospital, I knew that I wanted to be a nurse. Everything that I did through school was directed towards this goal. I was accepted into the Class of 1962 of Toledo Hospital, and spent three years developing into a skilled practitioner. As a class we knew that we were prepared to take on the world, and as we went our separate ways most of us did just exactly that. My journey had many twists and turns as I grew in my profession, and realized that my marriage was in shambles. When I made the decision to pursue a doctorate in education, I , also, knew that it was time to move on with my life without my mate. It was a difficult decision, and filled with much angst, and difficulty at the time. When I finally made it in front of the judge, I had no idea how much my life was about to change. That evening my present spouse called me for a date, and we were married six months later. People were shaking their heads in disbelief when I made the announcement that I was to be married again. We recently celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary. When I went to nursing school, all that I wanted was to be a nurse, and had no plan for the rest of my life. As one friend frequently reminded me, his outlook was that I was looking for my Mrs. Well that happened, and because of a job transfer, I was finally in a city where I could obtain my BSN (at that time there was no accredited program in the Toledo Area). Because I had the degree, I was then elgible to teach nursing, and just happen to be in the right place at the right time, when the ER instructor announced to me that she was leaving. I had just left the ER in order to do my Public Health Nursing Course, and would never be hired back into the ER. So that gave me a wonderful year, to try out my ability as an educator, and make decisions that impacted the rest of my life. I quickly realized, that I had the skills for the clinical part, but I was lacking in skills for the educational part of the position; so, back to OSU for a Master's in nursing and education. As I was finishing this degree, my spouse had decided that he was tired of the BIG FARM CITY and wanted to be back in Toledo. As we made these decisions, I started to interview at two new nursing programs in the Toledo area, and ultimately selected Penta Tech now Owens Community College to continue my academic career. We were all new faculty, and our dean had been the dean at Lima Tech, so she knew the program, and very quickbly brought us up to par. For me, it was quite a journey as I stayed with the first class through the whole program. For two years I never taught the same thing again, but eventually settled into the second year of the program. I stayed there for 7 or 8 years and then shifted into the first year of the program. In the meantime came the new life, and an EdD. One day one of my colleagues asked me if I knew anyone who wanted a master's in psych nursing, and I replied, yes, I do. Then, I replayed what I had just agreed to, and said, what I really want is the Clinical Component of the Pscyh. I, already, have a masters in nursing. For that year there was a shortage of students applying to the Wayne State University graduate program in psych nursing. This was another instance of being in the right place at the right time. I wrote my credentials on a napkin, which I assumed my colleague would recopy onto a piece of paper, well I guess a napkin counts as paper, because that is exactly what she did. She gave the prof the napkin. A month later I received information from Wayne State, and before I knew it, I was driving to Detroit for classes. I had visions of what I would do with these newly gained skills and knowledge, but again I was to be in the right place at the right time. I walked into my husband's office at MCO one morning, and he told me that Lourdes College had decided at the board meeting the night before to go forward with a BSN program. It seemed that one of the board members worked with him. I had been to Lourdes College once with my husband, and grumbled all the way through the college why can't they have a nursing program. Less than two years later, I was selected as the Dean of the new program, and moved from Owens across town to Sylvania Ohio onto the campus of one of the most beautiful institutions that I have experienced. As I started laying out the program I r...Expand for more