Alva Review-Courier -

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Judy Murphy didn't grow up wanting to become a nurse. But she reluctantly enrolled in the three-year program at City Hospital in 1965, for a total cost of about $471.

The program was essential to the hospital, the primary public one in south St. Louis for those who could not pay.

The work was demanding — at times, heartbreaking — and the strict 7 p.m. curfew imposed on the nurses belittling for women coming into their own. But Murphy said she found good reason to stick around: The endearing patients. Her tough-love supervisor. And, most of all, the other nurses-in-training she...