Sandy Gordon Ghormley

sandyghormley

After high school graduation, I worked at Harold Hiken's Boys' Camp Timberlane and then entered the nursing program at St. Olaf College, in Northfield, MN. In my senior year, I joined the Navy Nurse Corps and was commissioned in January of 1964.

After spending the summer learning about the Navy in Newport, Rhode Island, I was stationed at Bethesda Naval Hospital, where I met my husband, Dr. Rex Ghormley, a Navy Optometrist. He was ordered to report to Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego so we decided to get married on March 20, 1965. Within six months he was transferred to Washington, D.C. and we could live together. Nowadays, couples live together first and then get married!

We were transferred to the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, N.C. where our son Scott was born in October of 1966. Rex resigned his commission in 1967 to return to California and practice optometry as a civilian in Arroyo Grande.

We were there for three years when he was given the opportunity to join a prestigious practice in St. Louis, specializing in contact lenses, and we moved there in 1970. Our second child, daughter Erin, was just three weeks old! She was joined by Kerry in September of 1972 and we completed our "All American Family," two born on opposite coasts and one born in the middle!

I had worked as a staff nurse and also learned the ropes in the newly launched Intensive Care Unit in California but teaching nursing seemed to fit in better with a young family. I taught basic nursing skills for one year until Kerry was born, and then decided to get my Master's Degree at St. Louis University on my G.I. Bill. I taught R.N.'s in Medical-Surgical Nursing for five years at St. Louis University, retiring to finish raising my children.

I then began to sell vitamins and health related items until the present, in addition to being active in community affairs. I built my husband a new office and we moved into the building in 1985. He continued to prosper and become internationally known in the field of contact lenses and practice management.

I took a course in Parish Nursing and volunteered at our church for five years, terminating when we moved to Eureka in 1996. Rex and I joined Most Sacred Heart Catholic Church and have been very happy there ever since.

After his untimely death due to lung cancer in 2009, I re-activated my current business, Youngevity, which has blossomed into nutritional products for health and wellness. We still have healthy coffee! It combines my interests in staying healthy with entrepreneurship.

I am passionate about my faith. I have grown closer to the Lord as I nursed my husband to a peaceful death, and I find great comfort in the Sacraments of the Catholic Church. I helped start a new retreat program called A.C.T.S. and was on the teams giving these retreats for several years.

I am also passionate about recycling. I can't stand to throw away anything that could be put in the recycle bin.

I love music of all kinds, Itheater, good restaurants, fine wine, travel, different cultures, adventure.

I am not the greatest about exercising but I know that it is the only way I will be able to continue doing all of the above.

I am politically conservative, loving FOX, Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, Palin, etc., but I am not loving everything that the Republican Party has done. I like a good political discussion, but find it very frustrating when people who disagree with me refuse to state the reasons for their views. They don't want to dialog, which is how we grow and learn from one another. The most common argument is "I just don't like..."

Naval Officer/Nurse at Bethesda Naval Hospita, MD; Staff Nurse at Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, Arroyo Grande, CA; Staff Nurse in Intensive Care/Coronary Care at Sierra Vista Hospital, San Luis Obispo, CA; Nursing Instructor at Lutheran Hospital School of Nursing, St. Louis, MO; Nursing Instructor at St. Louis University School of Nursing, St. Louis, MO; Vitamin Sales with Neo-Life; Parish Nurse at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, St. Louis, MO; Youngevity Products for Health and Wellness (including healthy coffee!).

Once in a lifetime: Seeing my first grandchild, Kylie Christina, born.

High point: Attending closing ceremonies at the Olympics in France in 1990. It was an intimate venue where athletes from around the world mingled with attendees on the floor of the arena after the ceremonies were finished.

Adventure: Visiting South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Rex had a neat saying, "Most of the time on our vacations we see what man has made. In Africa, you.can see what God has made."

I had a wonderful life with my husband, who spoiled me constantly.

I am again a single person, finding it quite fulfilling, albeit different. I am alone but not lonely, enjoying the opportunities that lie before me. I want to add years to my life and life to my years by helping others do the same.

I wrote my Master's Thesis in 1976 which may still be clinically pertinent. "Congruence of Perception of the Needs of Terminally Ill Patients Between the Patients and Their Nurses."

I also wrote my mother's life story in 2007, which Ken Cook Publishing printed. It even has a Library of Congress number.

I have been taking a writing class for several years, finding a new way of expressing feelings in free verse.

I think it is surprising that I am running a business at the age when most people are retiring, but the thought of sitting in a rocker on my front porch does not appeal to me. I also have expensive tastes, thanks to my husband, so I want to earn the money to continue to do those activities. Thirdly, I like to give money to charities.

I think I have pretty well summed up my life. What about yours?

I have told this story before but I am trying to find the other four people who were with me and Ken Cook, the time he was given the car to drive to a football game in Wauwatosa. He was the first in our class to get his license. Needless to say he was popular and many were hopeful of getting a ride to the game. I remember sitting in the middle of the front seat, with someone on my right and three or four in the back seat. As we approached the railroad tracks on Hampton, by the Dairy Queen, the bar was down and the warning bells were ringing, but there was no train in sight. Ken was getting impatient so he started to drive around the bar to cross the tracks. I screamed NO, because I have always had a fear of crossing railroad tracks. Just then a passenger train whizzed in front of us. There is no way it could have stopped to avoid hitting us if
we had gone across prematurely. So, who else is alive to tell this story??? (Ken has
erased it from his memory).