Call Number:

MC 167

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Barbara Bates Center for the Study of The History of Nursing

Extent:

0.25 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Mary Jane Holcombe Trautman papers, Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1940s-2005

Creator:

Trautman, Mary Jane Holcombe, 1940s-2005

Donor:

Trautman, Liz

Form:

Letters (correspondence) and Personal papers

Abstract:

Mary Jane Holcombe Trautman was a psychiatric nurse and educator. This collection contains a small selection of her personal papers, photographs, and poems, along with extensive correspondence with fellow nurse Gretta (Margaretta) Styles.

Mary Jane Holcombe Trautman graduated from Jefferson Medical College Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1945. Her fiancé Wilbur Trautman attended the Naval Academy. She returned to nursing education at the University of Pennsylvania after 20 years as a naval wife and raising 4 children. After obtaining a BS and MS in Psychiatric Nursing, she taught at Villanova in Philadelphia and then at St. Joseph’s in Windham (Standish), Maine. After retirement she continued to be active in nursing. She attended conferences and worked with several other nurses to organize Maine’s historic nursing papers.

Mary Jane Holcombe Trautman met and became close friends with Gretta (Margaretta) Styles soon after returning to nursing. They corresponded often until Gretta’s death in 2005 and met whenever possible. She maintained a file of their correspondence and “wants to see it carefully preserved in a Nursing Archives at Penn.”

All materials have been scanned by the donor’s daughter, Liz Trautman, and a CD containing images of all the documents is also included in the archive. All materials have been retained in the order received.

Her daughter believed that (her mother’s), “..passion for nursing and especially her recognition of the humanistic side of nursing are what drew my mother and Gretta Styles to become close friends along with others…”