2005 Inductees

Historical

Crystal M. Lange

As the registered nurse responsible for beginning the College of Nursing at SVSU, Crystal M. Lange is an appropriate candidate for the Hall of Fame’s Historical Category. She was well represented at the Awards Dinner by five of her seven children. Her son Bob spoke confidently of his mother’s passion for nursing, and how she worked for “change, quality, creativity and forward movement.” Janalou Blecke, RN, PhD, Dean and Professor of the Crystal M. Lange College of Nursing at SVSU, stated: “In both nursing and nursing education, Crystal was a pioneer in the region and state. She set the pace for nurses to advance their education and strengthen their position for influence within the health care system…Her trademark was to create opportunities for learning and growing for anyone who was willing to step up and accept the challenge. Her conviction, fervor and perseverance were contagious.”

Contemporary

Margaret Flatt

SVSU’s Assistant Dean of Nursing, Margaret Flatt, is the 2005 inductee in the Contemporary division. Flatt is a Professor and the MSN Program Coordinator at SVSU. Sandra Smith, MNA Bay Central Chapter (4) President, had this to say about her colleague: “Peggy is courageous in her commitment to nursing, as evidenced by her political activism regarding healthcare issues and by letting her voice be heard loud and clear by legislators regarding nursing’s agenda for healthcare reform. She is generous and self-giving in her willingness to share her political and professional activism through exemplary role-modeling and vibrant mentoring of colleagues to become dynamic leaders in nursing…Peggy’s contributions to the profession of nursing will continue well beyond her life time through the students she motivates with her energetic modeling of professional activism.” She is a well-known expert on the experiences of women in war, having been a member of the Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam war; for which she earned the Vietnam Campaign Ribbon, Vietnam Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Meritorious Unit Emblem, and Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm Unit Citation Badge. Peggy continues to be an active researcher in chronic disease and also serves in a volunteer capacity as the coordinator of the Parish Nursing Program at Trinity Lutheran Church in Midland.

2004 Inductees

Historical

Lystra E. Gretter, RN (1858-1951)

All Michigan RNs owe a great deal to Lystra Gretter. She was a major force in the nursing profession; reducing workdays for nursing students from 12 to 15 hours a day to to 12 hours, hiring graduate nurses to head departments rather than using students, and creating texts for nursing students to study where there had been none before. Known as the “Dean of Michigan Nurses,” she is most known, however, for the changes she brought about in the Metropolitan Detroit Visiting Nurses Association as their second Director. Under her care, school children were inspected for health issues, tuberculosis cases were diagnosed with care plans set into motion, and mother/infant clinics created. In her desire to provide nursing care in the home setting, she changed the lives of thousands, including ministering to the immigrant families who were flooding into Detroit. And all of this from a woman widowed at age 26 with a small child!

Other highlights of Gretter’s career: Author of the 1893 “Florence Nightingale Pledge for Nurses”; first President of the Michigan Nurses Association (1904-05); founding member of the American Society of Superintendents of Nursing Training Schools (1893) which became the National League for Nursing; prime mover for state licensure for Michigan nurses to be required, which became law in 1909.

Iva E. Terrill, RN (1882 – 1965)

In May 1906, Ms. Terrill graduated from the United Benevolent Association (UBA) Hospital Training School for Nurses in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In later years, UBA would become Blodgett Hospital, and merge with Butterworth Hospital to become today’s Spectrum Health. On April 30, 1907, Ms. Terrill neé Bush moved to Lansing, Michigan to begin work as a Visiting Nurse. The fledgling Michigan State Nurses Association had collected money from tag day sales, gifts and fees to help pay the salary for Lansing’s first Visiting Nurse.

Her work hours were 8:00 am to 6:00 pm. She made Sunday calls at her discretion and was given a half day off each week. Terrill’s grandson remembers her talking about how she would mop the floors and clean the homes of people who were too ill to take care of the needs by themselves. In later years, Terrill would also work at St. Lawrence Hospital, living 57 years in the state capitol.

Virginia Cleland, PhD, RN, FAAN (1924-1994)

Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan was Dr. Virginia Cleland’s home from 1952 to 1985, and she made powerful changes in the nursing program there. It was Cleland who emphasized the need for a doctoral program in nursing at Wayne State, a necessity that would help others understand nursing as a profession. She had a lifetime interest in research and issues that surrounded bedside nurses, such as staffing, salary, and education.

As a professional woman, she also fought strongly in the 1970s for women’s rights. During the 1970s, Cleland helped shape policy through the federal courts that would provide for equal retirement and insurance benefits regardless of gender. She was awarded 10 major federal research grants and involved in one of the first clinical trials performed by nurses. In 1990, Cleveland wrote The Economics of Nursing, which discussed how economic principles applied to nursing. Cleveland’s influence lives on not only at Wayne State University and the University of California, San Francisco but is passed down to others through the American Nurses Foundation Virginia Cleland, RN Scholar Award, which provides monies for research on health policy issues.

Contemporary

Linda Cromartie, RN

As an RN at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan, Linda has been an invaluable part of the nursing staff for the last 27 years. Her personnel jacket overflows with letters from patients and families who have spent time with her in cardiac care. The patient surveys often mention her by name. And, Linda puts her experience to good use by working as a preceptor and mentor for nurses new to the profession.

Linda is certified in Intravenous Nursing and Critical Care Nursing, with her last assignment in the Cardiac Progressive Care Unit at Sparrow. But her willingness to share her heart with her patients also extends to her home, where she has adopted two hard to place children, along with her teenage son. Linda has been honored by national leaders in Washington, DC as the model for adoptive parents. Although she faces a huge burden in overcoming the results of a stroke in 2004, Linda is determined to return to nursing as soon as she can.

Antonia M. Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN

As the first nurse manager of the Children’s Hospital Pediatric Rehabilitation Center, Antonia Villarruel got a first hand look at children’s pain. However, Villarruel noticed that the “OUCHER,” a photographic visual pain scale used with children as young as 3 years, was not working for African American and Hispanic children. With the help of colleagues from Wayne State University, research was completed to create an “OUCHER” that would work for other children.

Villarruel has used her Latino background to help provide health to many Latino children and their families, from reducing sexual risk in teenagers to reducing problems with maternal problems and cardiovascular disease. She is the first Mexican-American and only the second Latina to ever have been awarded an R01 by the National Institute of Nursing Research. Villarruel helped begin the Michigan Chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses and has served on the National Advisory Council on Nursing Education and Practice, the Secretary’s Advisory Council for Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the Center for Disease Control HIV/STD/TB Prevention Advisory Council.

Luther Christman, RN, PhD, FAAN

The first male president of the Michigan Nurses Association (1961-65), Luther Christman is known for being the “first” of many things. Christman was the first male dean of nursing in the United States at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN and helped establish the American Assembly of Men in Nursing. He proposed the establishment of the American Academy of Nursing and was inducted into it in 1974.

Christman is also known for his far-ranging thinking. He advocates advanced degree requirements for entry into the profession and believes that if the majority of American nurses had been men, the economic and general welfare of nurses would never have been an issue. Known around the world as a nursing authority with advanced thoughts on the advancement of the profession of nursing, Christman's writings and teachings are a source of inspiration and knowledge for generations of nurses to come.