PLACENTIA : Nurse’s Dedication Inspires a Dedication

When Mary Gerhold started as a school nurse at the old Bradford Elementary School in 1945, polio was epidemic, scarlet fever was cause for alarm and lining up for vaccinations was as much a part of school life as cafeteria food and Dick and Jane readers.

Much of her job involved filling out government forms on the number of students with contagious diseases and making sure those students were properly quarantined. Back then, when students sought Gerhold’s help, it was usually to clean a minor wound or put ice pack on sprained limb.

When Gerhold retired from the district 26 years later, her job included counseling students who had drug and alcohol problems and helping teen-age girls tell their parents they were pregnant.

But if the problems had changed, Gerhold said her mission was the same: “They were still kids, and they still needed someone to listen to them.”

On Sunday, Gerhold will be listening to some of her former pupils, but this time they will be talking about her .

In honor of her long service to the children of Placentia, the city on Sunday will dedicate a street in her honor. The ceremony will be from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Backs Building, 201 N. Bradford St.

Gerhold Lane was the idea of Sam Castillo, a Valencia High School graduate who never forgot the nurse who took such an interest in him.

“My brothers and I have been talking about doing something for her for years,” Castillo said. “At reunions, I would see her, and she would always remember me.”

Last November, Castillo and several other Valencia graduates decided the time was right to honor Gerhold, now 87. They asked City Hall to consider naming a school or a building in her honor, and the city suggested a street.

“I wanted to go for the 57 freeway, but I didn’t think they would buy that,” Castillo quipped.

What Castillo remembers most about Gerhold is that she always had time for those in need.

“She had such an open heart,” Castillo said of Gerhold. “The poor people in town, the ones who needed her help the most, she always found time for. She was just so kind.”

A typical day for Gerhold had her at school before students arrived in the morning and there well after they left each afternoon. She literally lived at school, first in a dormitory on the Bradford campus, then in a house at Valencia High School.

“I paid $25 a month to live in the Bradford dormitory, which another teacher dubbed Character Manor, saying you had to be a character to live there,” Gerhold recalled.

Gerhold suffered a stroke several years ago and now lives at Villa de Palma, a retirement community in Placentia. She jokes that she often forgets where she put her keys, but her memories of the students are keen as ever.

“I remember each one, both the happy stories and the disappointments,” she said. “They are all so dear to me.”