Off a country road in Susquehanna, four women gathered in a barbecue restaurant.
They helped pin each other’s matching hats, pulled up their stockings and laced their bright white sneakers. The women wore matching outfits, and when they finished the outfits’ final details, they looked around the table at each other, smiling.
“Sisters in white,” they said to each other, almost like a call and response.
The "sisters in white" are members of the Nurse Honor Guard of Susquehanna County, a local chapter of the national volunteer organization that honors the service of nurses, registered, licensed vocational and nurse practitioners, “on their final journey.”
The organization performs a final call to duty ceremony at funerals and memorials of deceased nurses, similar to a military tribute.
“We want to have the nurses know and their families, that they're remembered, and that they were appreciated, and that their service mattered. Sometimes life gets so busy that we forget who's really helped us the most. So we want to honor that and continue that,” said Judy Wanatt Behanick, the organization’s co-president.
They also participate in activities honoring those who still serve.
The chapter completed five final call of duty tributes, one living tribute, received a county proclamation, recruited 20 members and more in just over one year of existence.
Every chapter of the Nurse Honor Guard dresses in traditional, historical nurse outfits: white uniforms, capes with red lining and white caps.
“The cap represents the heritage and dedication and compassion of our profession, and our cape historically was worn for warmth. The red lining meant that someone could tell in the field, in the military, that that was a medical professional,” Wanatt Behanick said.
Each of the four present members accessorised their capes with different pins. Retired nurse and Honor Guard member Betty Tompkins pinned a broach with a picture of her father, Robert DeLuca, to hers.
“He was a medic in World War II, and he served in the Pacific Theater. And when he passed away, I went through my mom's jewelry box and found this. So he's with me,” Tompkins said.
The Nurse Honor Guard ceremony
The ceremony starts with white roses, one handed to a family member and one laid on the casket or next to an urn. It represents purity and remembrance. A member of the Honor Guard holds a Florence Nightingale lamp, a symbol of care and dedication in nursing in honor of Florence Nightingale, who held a lamp while caring for wounded soldiers on the battlefield.
Then the Honor Guard conducts a roll call, in which they call the nurse’s name three times, ringing a triangle each time the nurse does not respond. When the nurse does not answer after the third triangle ring, the Guard extinguishes the lamp.
“We're asking them to report to duty … On the third time, when they don't answer, we ring one final time, and we release them of their earthly duties, and we tell them to rest in peace, and that we've got it from here,” said Andrea Quezada, the organization’s co-president.
The Guard received emotional, but positive, feedback after performing the ceremonies.
“We had two priests who were at the cemeteries come up to us later on and said, ‘"We have never seen anything like this, and it was just absolutely beautiful,’” said Shirley Decker, a retired nurse and Honor Guard member.
The Honor Guard also performed a living tribute for a former licensed practice nurse in a local nursing home. They showed up in uniform, presented her with a white rose and a quilt and thanked her for her service as a nurse.
“I did the tribute, and I got to the rear end of it and just started crying, and I'm going to cry now. It means so much to all of us because we are nurses,” Decker said.
A ‘presence’ in the community
The community welcomed the Honor Guard with open arms. A local quilting group volunteers its time to make quilts for nurses’ families as part of the final call to duty ceremony. Red Rock BBQ & Catering offers its space for the organization’s meetings.
Local florist Wee Bee Flowers donated white roses for the Honor Guard to lay on nurses’ graves during Nurses Week in May. This year, they laid 50 white roses. Next year, they aim to lay 100.
And the organization raised more than $2,000 since it started to support its work.
“When you see a community that comes together to help others, it's such a warm and loving feeling, and it makes our mission so much easier when you have the support of your community,” Wanatt Behanick said.
“To be able to honor other nurses is easy for us. The thank yous that we receive are amazing. But it isn't needed on our end. We're not doing it to be thanked. We're doing it because that's our way of thanking previous nurses,” she said.
The organization even received a county proclamation.
“They really provide a very nice presence when they come out and support the community activities and especially the families that have lost loved ones that were former nurses or healthcare workers,” Susquehanna County Commissioner Bob McNamara said.
McNamara championed the Honor Guard’s cause at county council meetings.
“It was really a pleasure to be able to support them because they're really doing a nice job for our community,” McNamara said.
They participated in several community parades in uniform and are starting to gain recognition.
“I don't think people actually can appreciate what we do until they see us out in the field, and I know I have had people come up to me, ‘Oh, I saw you waving on the back of the wagon. It was just great,’” Decker said.
Supporting generations of nurses
The Honor Guard also wants to serve as inspiration for the new generation of nurses. Many of the nurses have decades of experience. Wanatt Behanick has been a nurse for more than 25 years.
“Together we honor those who care for others, and that goes along with not just nurses who are deceased, but nurses coming up in the ranks. We want to honor them to say thank you to them as well,” she said.
The Honor Guard nurses attended the capping and pinning ceremony for the LPN program at Susquehanna County Career and Technology Center, something they will continue to do every year.
“We will be adopting them at Christmastime as well. As we all know, nursing school is pretty tough, so we are going to adopt them and make little baskets and so forth,” Wanatt Behanick said.
A way to further their service
The nurses see their participation in the Honor Guard as part of their calling.
“When you're in the medical profession, you just have something special in your heart that you want to give. Usually the reason you go into one of the medical professions is because somebody really touched your heart and encouraged you, gave you that spark to want to help other people,” Quezada said.
The organization is open to any nurse who wants to join.
Certified nursing assistants, or CNAs can also participate — just not in the tributes, as per national guidelines. They welcome male nurses to join too.
But for now, the women enjoy the sisterhood they’ve created.
“I never had sisters. I had two older brothers, so I call us sisters in white,” Decker said.
The Honor Guard members expressed gratitude for the opportunity to honor the service of all their sisters and brothers in white.
“They all know what it means to care for somebody who has cared for others, and it's in my soul. That's the only way I can describe it. It's just in my soul, and I'll do it till I drop,” Decker said.
The Honor Guard serves as a way to thank all the nurses that came before them.
“I take pride in the profession, and I can tell you that doing these tributes and giving back to those who served others in the past it's just giving them a visible sign of appreciation really touches my heart, and once you become a nurse, you're always a nurse with sisters in white,” Quezada said.
