Mervin R. and Sharon Helmuth Nursing Scholarship
As a boy growing up in an Amish home, Merv Helmuth never dreamt of working in higher education. Following Amish tradition, Helmuth thought he would finish school after eighth grade. But with the support and encouragement of mentors and a lot of determination, he retired in 2011 with 52 years of nursing experience, 42 of them as a Goshen College Professor of Nursing. Combined with Sharon’s 49 years, many spent working at Goshen Hospital, the Helmuths have 101 years of nursing experience.
When Merv was 16 he began working on a neighbor’s farm to help make some extra money for his family. “The summer I turned 16 there was no more school in my future as far as my vision was concerned or as far as my folks’ vision was concerned,” he said. “I was sick as a dog when I heard I was going to work on a farm because that was the last thing I wanted to do.” Over the course of three years, Merv moved in with the farmer and ran his farm. Eventually he grew to enjoy the experience, especially because working on the farm meant that he needed to get a driver’s license – something he wouldn’t have been able to do if he stayed with his family.
“It was during that period of time, for some reason, that I had this notion about education or finishing high school,” said Merv. He found a matchbook that advertised a school in Chicago that offered a correspondence course to finish high school. He wasn’t convinced that he should follow through with taking the course, though, and money was a big issue. Within a week, a man from Elkhart came to the farm to convince him to take the course. After discussing it for months, Merv decided to let the man talk to his parents. Much to his surprise, his parents said he could take the course if it was something he really wanted to do.
Merv said his mother probably had a big influence on the decision to allow him to continue his schooling. Contrary to many Amish, Merv’s mother loved to read and he says, “I remember my mother reading ‘Little House on the Prairie’ books to us before we went to bed, which is pretty uncharacteristic for an Amish family. Mom was always reading, and that’s where I think I got my love for education and learning.”
During Merv’s last year at the farm, he was drafted for the Vietnam War, so he applied for alternative service, which required him to find a job at a hospital within a year. He applied for a job at the Irene Byron Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Fort Wayne, Ind., where his brother was already doing his service. “When I got there, they told me, ‘There are three positions you can go into. You can go into laundry, you can go into maintenance or you can go into nursing,’ said Merv. “And I looked at those first two and I thought, ‘I’ve done enough of that already! I want to go into nursing!’”
During his three years at the sanitarium, Merv met his wife, Sharon, who was a nursing student at a Lutheran hospital nearby. Their relationship blossomed and they were married in 1965. At the end of Merv’s second year at the sanitarium, the director of nursing there came to him and asked if he had ever considered going on to become a nurse. “I looked at her and I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! I don’t even have a high school education!’ I had never even dreamt of such a thing.” She told him that if he finished his correspondence course for his high school education, which he was in the midst of completing, she would find a way for him to get into a nursing school. They both followed through on their sides of the agreement, and a year later Merv became a student nurse at Parkview Hospital. It was particularly difficult to find a program that would accept a male nurse, but Parkview decided if he would live off campus, he would be allowed into the program.
Merv spent the next three years as a student and working in nursing at the hospital, and by the end he was a registered nurse. “Then for some crazy reason, I still don’t know why, I came up here to Goshen College and filled out an application to go on to school,” said Merv. He came to GC for two years to get his bachelor’s degree in nursing and again someone took an interest in furthering his career. During his second year, Orpah Mosemann asked Merv if he would be interested in being part of the nursing faculty after graduation. They agreed that if Merv completed his master’s degree in nursing, there would be a spot on the Goshen College nursing faculty for him when he came back. Merv also found out that Mosemann “held the purse strings” for a federal grant that paid for school plus a stipend. Merv received that grant during his last year at Goshen, and the grant followed him to graduate school.
“I had an interview with the president and the dean while I was still a student at GC,” said Merv. “I signed a contract before I ever left here, and got my first check from the college before I even graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville, where I got my master’s degree.” Throughout his over 40 years of teaching at Goshen College, Merv helped develop and organize the Mock Nursing Convention, taught every junior-level nursing course as well as some sophomore and senior courses, and saw countless students graduate from the nursing program.
Merv’s love for teaching has stayed consistent through the years. “I still love getting up in front of the class room and having a dialogue with the students – not just lecturing to them, but getting them to answer questions,” he said. Although new technologies have changed nursing practices, the students have essentially remained the same throughout the years, said Merv. The students remain excited, committed and hardworking year after year.
Merv summed up his Goshen College teaching career by saying, “So all I can say is that I was supposed to be here. I don’t think I necessarily did anything to deserve all of that, but it was just people stepping out at certain times in history and pointing me in the right direction, and beyond that, providing me with the money on top of it.” He said he feels indebted to those who helped him out along the way. “I have always said that when I retire, I think that it’s somewhat my obligation to pay back what I’ve been given,” he said.