Irma Margarite Beede Hall Memorial Nursing Scholarship
The Irma Margarite Beede Hall Memorial Nursing Scholarship was established in 2017 to honor the life and legacy of Irma Hall by her son, Terry. It is targeted, but not limited, to single parent applicants.
Irma graduated from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, High School in 1937 and received her nursing degree from the Moline, Illinois, Public Hospital in 1942. She enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps in 1943. After serving in various stateside military installations, she was sent to London, England, in March 1944 as a triage nurse where she evaluated Allied soldier injuries for immediate or delayed treatment. After a short deployment, she was transferred back to the United States in September 1944.
Irma started her post-miliary career in nursing at Solar Aircraft in Des Moines, Iowa, the future site Des Moines Technical School, now Central Campus. She was eventually employed as a company nurse across the street at Meredith Corporation where she met her future husband, who she married in 1948.
Irma later divorced and became a single parent. She then worked as a nurse at various cities in Iowa, eventually securing a position as staff nurse at Grinnell College in Grinnell. Irma often worked the night shift caring for college students who were sick or injured doing the foolish things that students do, including emptying their bed pans and giving them sponge baths. She considered herself an “old school nurse” who performed whatever care a patient needed. Irma worked at the college for 25 years, retiring as the Head Nurse for the College Health Center and managing three staff nurses, 10 beds, and several support staff.
Irma lived a difficult life surviving a divorce and the death of a daughter, who was killed in a car accident at age 16. As a nurse the salary was low, and she was paid only nine months during a year. When she and her children moved to Grinnell, they initially lived in a noisy, drafty, one-room World War II-vintage Quonset hut. Yet Irma never lost that altruistic dedication to her profession and to her son.
Irma would be humbled, but pleased, that this scholarship bearing her name is helping applicants with a financial need to attain the honorable profession of nursing that she loved.