Phyllis E. Gustafson Endowed Nursing Scholarship

Phyllis E. Gustafson grew up on a farm in Nebraska and began her education in a one-room schoolhouse and graduated valedictorian of her high school class. Although she had a dream of becoming a history teacher, there was not money to go to college. Instead, Phyllis sold her clarinet to pay tuition to attend nursing school.

Upon graduating, she worked in a local hospital to save money to attend college and receive her BA in nursing at Northern Colorado University. With her nursing education background, Phyllis secured a position at Fairview Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. While there she wrote the first nursing manual for the hospital. She was the on-duty nursing director on the evening of the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.

Married to a Pastor, she always shared the love of nursing with all those she knew. Her love of history and education endured and she passed that on to her family and many others in her community. Phyllis was a caregiver in the truest sense of the word and she would be pleased to know that nurses today seek to expand their knowledge and skill in her memory.