It's hard for me to be funny about Miss Goodrich, although she was funny and I think she knew she was funny and often said something funny and witty on purpose. For example, when Dean Winternitz asked her if she didn't think she ought to tell her students what kind of shoes to wear, that they ought to be wearing good sensible shoes, she said, "You know, Dean Winternitz, that is a very good idea. What kind of shoes do you tell the medical students to wear?" But I really feel very serious when I talk about Miss Goodrich because I think she was a very great person. She certainly is the person who influenced me the most with my ideas about nursing.

Miss Goodrich was never maternalistic. She always treated us like grown people and she made us feel that nursing could, if we chose, change the world. She thought that nursing, and people in health care, demonstrated a love of humanity that, if practiced universally, would change the world. I think that idea was at the bottom of her calling her collected papers The Social and Ethical Significance of Nursing.

She was a pacifist and it hurt her to be in the uniform of the army. In fact, she said the Army School of Nursing was the only constructive thing the army had ever done. When she talked to us, she made us feel that we were embarked upon a wonderful career that had unlimited promise. She lived in the house of the Nicklesons during the First World War in Washington. She and Miss Burgess lived on the third floor of the Nickleson house and they were adored by this big family that went from a grandfather down to a very small boy. They all just adored her and said that if any of them were sick and she walked past the door, they felt better. If she came in the room, they immediately improved. If she came in and talked to them, it really was therapeutic.

She was the kind of a person that brought every audience to its feet. She was the epitome of generosity toward her associates. She always made you see the good in the people with whom she worked. She brought out the best in the people she worked with.

One of the things she taught us was to believe that there was nothing that we did for people that was beneath us. She used to say that there was no such thing as a menial task; that there was a menial attitude toward work.

Another thing that she stressed, she said that people shouldn't lead, that ideas should lead. And it was her ideas that you really remember most about her.

Kay Huntington

Do you remember those teas in Nathan Smith when Dean Goodrich would come in and it was as if the sun had shone suddenly? Everything changed when she arrived.

I arrived in September of 1929 and I was so eager to meet Dean Goodrich... Meeting Miss Goodrich really was the reward that I had looked forward to ever since I had started correspondence with her.

I remember particularly the evenings that some of us, I think most of us, had the privilege of having dinner with her. You remember, we used to sit by her fireside and she was so like a mother and she talked to us in a way that you never forget.

One of the things that I remember she talked about was that her first real interest in nursing was inspired by the fact that she had a favorite uncle who was very ill. She in her amateurish way had assisted in taking care of this favorite uncle. She said he really didn't need physical care so much as he needed intellectual stimulation. He needed someone to talk to. This gave her the unflagging conviction that you don't need just physical care, that mental stimulation, someone to talk to, is what patients must have.

I remember those seminars she had on the social and ethical significance of nursing. I thought often of how this all sprang from her devotion to a family member who really did need the kind of full care she always stood for.

Jean MacLean

We weren't always sure exactly what she was meaning, because she had tremendous vision, but she never talked down to us. She accepted us as colleagues. She made us feel that we could do very important things.

Kay Huntington

Her strength was not physical. She was frail really. She wore a brace; she had had polio as a child. She walked as if it was difficult. But she walked so purposefully, you just knew she was going to be where she intended to be. No matter how hard it might be to get there. She was a frail little lady, but the longer you knew her the taller she got.

Marion Gates

The year after we graduated, this was in 1948, she was frequently visiting Mrs. Hyde at Nathan Smith Hall. My roommates and I were living on the front end of the top floor there. One day I came home from work feeling more bushed than usual and I just fell against the elevator button to call it down to the first floor. I was rather flabbergasted when the door opened and there stood Miss Goodrich holding the door for me. I was feeling very very foolish and she said, "Well, I was just standing in the elevator waiting for Mrs. Hyde, so I thought I might as well answer the bell."

Eleanor Gill

Miss Goodrich came to talk to us about the future of nursing one day. I have thought many many times in the last few years of her remarks. I can see her in my mind as she stood up. At that time she was getting along in years, she was very tiny and seemed very frail. She was behind a desk as she was talking to us. I can see her now with her fist just as tight as any fist could be, pounding on that hard table and saying, "Ladies, the day that we have two classes of nurses, we are in trouble."