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Memories &
Stories Fern Westphal |
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| FERN WESTPHAL by
Alicia Mohn Fern Westphal is my choice of an important person in the community. She has worked at Sioux Valley Memorial Hospital in Cherokee for 37 years. Fern is also the wife of Cherokee's current mayor, Lawrence (Wes) Westphal. Fern was born in Danbury, on Jan. 10, 1924. She grew up on a farm and always enjoyed people and being around them. She had an aunt that was a nurse whom she really admired. Because of her liking people and her aunt, Fern received her nursing education at St. Joseph School of Nursing in Sioux City. Fern started working at Sioux Valley Hospital in 1946. In 1954 she left work and had 3 children, Sharon, Carol, and John. After a leave of 12 years, she came back to work in 1966. Fern then became in charge of the nursing home that was located in the old hospital building. This is when she began her many years of social service work. In 1969, she started in nursing education and in 1971 she started working more in the new hospital. Fern was then a discharge planner and so she told people about different home care options. This got her mainly started with services available in the home. When she started working part time, she volunteered to coordinate Mobile Meals and Lifeline. Her duties now include lifeline, mobile meals, hospice volunteer, and many more things. She works with everything about lifeline except the actual installation. She organizes and monitors the installation and calls every lifeline client once a month to see if their lifeline is working alright. She is a member of the Home Choice and Hospice programs in Cherokee. In Hospice, a volunteer will come into a home of a terminally ill patient and relieve the caregiver for a while. Outside of the hospital, she also does other volunteer work. She has been a member of the cancer society, and was the coordinator for Reach For Recovery for 21 years. She also adopts and visits an elderly person who has no family members around. Fern's hobbies include volunteer work, learning how to play the piano, and gardening. her favorite vacation was the one she recently took to Colorado Springs for her nursing class reunion. The things she likes best about Cherokee are that it is a friendly town, it's a good size, not too large and not too small, and that there are a lot of opportunities do do things. Thank you, Fern, for all of your contributions to the community. You really have made a difference. Source: Former Cherokee County Historical Society scrap book. News article dated 10-2-1993. |
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