Carol Pierson manages patient care services for ALS United, Orange County chapter. She began her career in 1967 as a critical care nurse and later became a nurse-educator, first in emergency services and, from 1990, in hospitals. After her retirement in 2016, Pierson took up her current role full time, reducing to a three-day week in 2020. She continues to support nursing education by sponsoring student scholarships and equipment purchase at the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, and has arranged a generous bequest in honor of her late mother, Carolene Emrich.
Carol Pierson
I kept a napkin I saw at a friend’s house the other day. It says, ‘I thought growing old would take longer.’ That’s how I feel. We all had such frenetic lives. I was raising children, working two jobs, teaching, get- ting degrees, supporting my firefighter husband, and we had a very active social life. Time went by so fast. Now I have more time to do the things I want to do and get to know people in a way I didn’t have a chance to. I’m not bound by so many responsibilities. It’s nice not to worry about job advances. At work, I get a chance to really appreciate my patients more, I spend more time with them. It’s a good time.
When I went to nursing school in 1965, it was very traditional. We stayed in dorms and were not allowed to be married.
I was a critical care nurse for the army in San Francisco during Vietnam. I earned my bachelor’s and master’s so I could teach, and moved to Southern California to work with firefighters and paramedics. I married one of my students!
I was there the day my best friend was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), and I was there when she decided not to live any more. I went through that journey with her. In her honor and memory, I joined the ALS Association OC Chapter Board and that is why I work for ALS United now.
For people with ALS, lifespan is two to five years from diagnosis. There’s no prevention and no cure. I work for ALS United for 20 hours a week, seeing patients in the clinic on one of those days. They’re looking for help, for answers—they’re looking for hope. All I can do is give them things that make their life more comfortable, counseling for families, help finding financial resources. In critical care, we’re used to fixing people and seeing them go home. It’s hard not to have that. My mother lived to be 100. I watched her become very lonely after my father died, so that’s frightening to me. I’ve realized with my patients how their faith has gotten them through, or their community.
I have an amazing neighborhood and I’m surrounded by so many amazing people: I love mah-jong, I’m in a hiking group, a book club, I play pickleball—pickleball is my enigma. I’m not very good! But we’re here to have fun.
The Honorable Eileen Moore, JD, sits on the California Court of Appeal,
to which she was appointed in 2000 following 11 years as a judge on the
Superior Court. She was a combat nurse with the Army Nurse Corps
in Vietnam, and continues to support nurses’ education through her role
on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing.
Below, she describes the arc of her career in her own words.
Eileen Moore
I feel as if my life thus far has been somewhat of a history lesson. I became a nurse in the 1960s, a time when nursing was so much less sophisticated than it is now. I actually wanted to go to college to become a journalist, but my father explained to me that money for college had to be spent on my brothers because I would be getting married and some future husband would take care of me. Long story short, I ended up in the Army Nurse Corps as a combat nurse in Vietnam.
Once home again, in the midst of the women’s liberation movement, I grabbed for that brass ring. I enrolled at UC Irvine, which had a special program for women who were ‘returning’ to college. Up until then, college was a four-year venture, from age 18 to 22. After graduating in 1975, I graduated from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1978. I practiced law, primarily civil litigation, until 1989 when the governor appointed me to the Superior Court. In 2000, another governor appointed me to the California Court of Appeal, where I still sit. In 2004, I graduated from the University of Virginia with a master’s in the judicial process, having gone back for six weeks during the summers while doing my work remotely.
Last November 11, scores of women, mostly nurses who served in Vietnam, gathered for the 30th anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Women’s Statue in the National Mall in Washington, D.C. I discovered that other nurses came home and did essentially the same thing I did. One is a lawyer in Arkansas. Another a cardiologist in Arizona. There was a nurse who became a dentist in New Mexico and another who became a writer in New York City. And there was our leader, Diane Carlson Evans, who was almost solely responsible for the statue, having dedicated 11 years of her life to its creation.
After that event, 12 of us were contacted by The Greatest Generations Foundation. TGGF is taking us back to Vietnam this year. Somehow this has become very important to me. In a way, it is going back to the beginning. As I’ve spent much of my judicial career trying to help veterans who get sideways with the law, I feel as if I need to spend time with these nurses to find out if others question whether they could have or should have done more when we were so young.
Mary Roosevelt is a lifelong educator and advocate for curriculum innovation and teachers’ professional development. She trained as a teacher in London, UK and worked at the International School of Geneva, where she instigated the first
elementary years curriculum for what is now the International Baccalaureate. She was then Principal of the Junior House at the United Nations International School
in New York, until marriage to James Roosevelt, son of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, took her back to Geneva and, in 1972, to California. After recertifying at UC Irvine, she was immediately offered a job in the university’s department of education,
where she remained in a series of influential roles until her retirement in 2002.
Mary Roosevelt
I am truly retired! I’m writing my autobiography for my family—not for publication. I have never thrown away a letter, and I have chronological scrapbooks and copious files. I’m telling the story of my life from Day 1 and I’ve got to 1984. If I don’t finish it, somebody else could.
My first job as a primary school teacher was at probably the worst school in Brixton [London, UK]. It was between the prison and the police station. I had been very well trained at the Froebbel Institute, affiliated with the University of London. We were taught how children learn best through hands-on experiences.
I fought hard to be hired at the International School of Geneva, but I didn’t like the curriculum. We needed an international curriculum; the secondary schools were already ahead on that. The director general said, “You’re here to make changes.” He sent me all over the world. I visited schools and universities in many countries to get their feedback, to see what they were doing and where they needed help.
It was a different era. My team and I wrote the first draft of the International Elementary Schools curriculum in 1968. I had one American high school teacher walk me to my car and say, “If you didn’t have red hair and hazel eyes, you wouldn’t be going on all these trips.” I said, “If I don’t do the job, they’re going to fire me. You can’t do anything about that.”
In Africa, I carried the pouch for secret documents for the United Nations Development Program. I saw military coups, I saw earthquakes. I never knew what was in that pouch.
UC Irvine was a very young university in 1974 when I got my U.S. teaching certification from the UCI Office of Teacher Education (later the Department and ultimately the School of Education). Again I strived to change the teacher education program. I had a family and no intention of working after graduating but they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
I’ve survived many surgeries. I rarely feel ill and I am not a fearful person. But I’ve reluctantly given up five-inch heels for kitten heels, because I don’t want to trip.
I’m still involved in a lot of things. I have daily conversations with people from the International School of Geneva. The alumni are incredible. There are thousands all over the world, and they always stay in touch.
I don’t feel any older until I stand up. When I’m sitting down, I’m 20.
