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• After 45 years, New Richmond's Nurse Laura Rebhan calls it a career

By Julie Shehane-Bannink News staff reporter

When Laura Rebhan began her nursing career in 1958, things were a bit different than they are today.

Cost of a two week hospital stay was about $100 and the average salary for a starting registered nurse was $275 a month. It was also one of the few career choices open to women back then.

"There weren't a lot of choices for women," said Rebhan, 67. "You could be a nurse, a librarian or a secretary or something, so I chose nursing."

And after graduating from St. Catherine's in St. Paul, Rebhan received her pin and striped nursing hat - seen at that time as an elite status symbol - and embarked on what would become a 45 year career in nursing.

"Nursing has changed so much since I started. Medicine in general has gotten so high tech," she explained.

Over the years, she has worked with in-home patients and the elderly, at a doctor's office, on the surgical nursing floor, and even taught and coordinated prenatal classes before finishing her career at the St. Croix County Health Center's nursing home, where she worked off and on for the past 22 years.

"She's a wonderful nurse and was always very professional," said Kristie Tellijohn, director of nursing for the health center. "She was well liked by her co-workers and the residents and we are going to miss her."

For more, read the Sept. 18 New Richmond News.