`baby Jesus' Kidnapped 
From W-b Public Square 
Annual Nativity Scene Missing 
An Important Player

Loretta Christie 
Nov. 20, 1992 
Loretta Christie, Of Main Street, Inkerman, Jenkins Township, Died Friday At 
Home.

By CHRISTINA BINKLEY; Times Leader Staff Writer
 Sunday, November 22, 1992 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 1A/16A QUICK WORDS: TRIBUS NESBITT 





KINGSTON -- For 28 years she was the mother superior of Nesbitt Memorial
Hospital's obstetrics unit. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 A legend at 61, her cut-for-practicality hair is still its natural blond,
her manner a "you-can't-shock-me" invitation to trust. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This month, 44,689 babies after she started, a hospital task force replaced
Dorothy Tribus with a younger woman. It sparked a mini-revolution among her
staff and doctors. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The mere rumor of her going led to a petition on her behalf and sent nurses
to unionizing meetings. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 When Nesbitt's top executive, Ron Stern, confirmed the hearsay at a
meeting, he faced the malevolent silence of Tribus' supporters, then watched
them greet her with a thunderous ovation audible outside the brick hospital's
walls and two sets of doors. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 It seemed the end of an era, cinched by the corporate merging of Nesbitt
and Wilkes-Barre General hospitals. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "It's like we lost our mother," Tribus' nurses repeated in the days
following the meeting. "We will always be her girls." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Mother. The term crops up around Tribus like roots around a cypress tree. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Her work is legendary. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "Sometimes she didn't come home for three or four days because she wouldn't
leave someone having a baby," recalls Steve Tribus, her husband of 39 years. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 A nursing employee of 24 years credits Tribus with helping her reach a
major decision many years ago. "If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have my son
today." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Thirty-five years ago, the woman was pregnant, unmarried and scared. Others
encouraged her to place her baby for adoption. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "Mrs. Tribus came right out and told you, `If you want to keep your baby,
there's people out there who will help you. You don't have to give your child
up,'" recalls the woman, now a grandmother, who asked her name be withheld
because some family members are unaware of her story. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Unwed mothers in 1957 were treated like criminals, Tribus says. "I have
said to mothers, `If that's the worst crime that this little girl can do, you
can kiss the ground she walks on.'" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Steve Tribus says his wife is outspoken but not hard-headed. A few
Pennsylvania governors might disagree. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 When former Gov. Milton Shapp appointed Tribus to the state welfare
department's Advisory Committee on Mental Health and Mental Retardation, she
was asked to state her political affiliation. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus refused: "I (said) my political affiliation bore no resemblance to
my ability to serve." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus remained on the committee through three governors and two reversals
of party power. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "And I'm still there," she grins. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Nurses mobilize &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus' "both-barrels-open" style has encouraged people to get behind her. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "Boy oh boy, nothing's going to stop her," says Cheryl-Ann Young Schell, a
registered nurse who's worked under Tribus for three years. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Yet, at a task force's request, Tribus leaves her obstetrics unit to a
younger woman, Melinda Torbik. Before Nesbitt and Wilkes-Barre General
hospitals merged, Torbik, 34, ran General's obstetrics unit, which handles 500
babies annually compared with Nesbitt's 2,100. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus is not yelling foul, charging age discrimination or retiring. She is
accepting the inevitable. Two days into her new job directing the hospital's
outreach programs, she was plowing ahead with new programs to send nurses home
with new mothers and to expand a mother-to-be clinic. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Her staff has not adjusted as well. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Early this month, rumors that Tribus might be sidelined created an uprising
among her 103 staffers as well as a number of doctors. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 They called the press and signed a petition demanding Tribus keep her job. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Last Monday, 90 nurses from both hospitals discussed organizing with union
leaders from Harrisburg. Some said Tribus' move from obstetrics motivated
them. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 And when Ron Stern, the hospital's president and chief executive officer
agreed to their request for a meeting, he got more than he'd bargained for. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Scores of nurses, doctors and employees filled a conference room and
spilled into the hall, including staffers from night shifts carrying babies on
their hips. The meeting was moved to an assembly hall to accommodate the
crowd. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 As they waited, Tribus braced herself in the nearby nursing office, feeling
overwhelmed. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "You know, some people can lay in a casket and never know about how people
feel about them," Tribus said later. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Not she. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 A pioneer &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus always wanted to be a nurse, says her 86-year-old mother, Anne
Brozusky, and she's always been forward-thinking. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Brozusky believes Tribus got the trait from her father, Peter, who was a
miner and later a bartender. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Born at home on Ford Avenue in 1931, Tribus and her husband have lived on
Chestnut Street since 1951. Their two-story house has a lived-in feel, worn
furnishings and a tidy kitchen. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The blue wood-sided home sits one building from St. Mary's Byzantine
Church, where Dorothy, 14, first met Steve, 25, just back from the service in
'45. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 They didn't date for six more years -- Steve says he fell for Dorothy when
he once saw her working at Nesbitt. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus gave birth to her own five children without medication before
natural childbirth was popular. In 1956, she decided to have her oldest son,
Steven, in the upstairs bathroom. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Dr. William "Wild Bill" Hazlett was with her during that birth,
periodically helping and watching television downstairs, says Tribus' husband. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Hazlett and Tribus made the Nesbitt obstetrics unit a mecca for modern
childbirth. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Nesbitt had homelike birthing rooms in the 1960s. Fathers assisted in
deliveries 20 years before it became common practice. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus started the area's first childbirth classes for expectant parents in
1964 -- the year she became the boss in obstetrics. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 She still teaches classes on Mondays and some Sundays, with a method that
is more show than tell. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 To teach anatomy, Tribus wears a black dress, turns off the lights, and
draws with fluorescent chalk where the baby is. She teaches breathing and
relaxation in the darkness, aiming a flashlight at the breathing body parts. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "Her whole being goes into this. It just flows out of her," says Cheryl-Ann
Young Schell. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Says obstetrician Michael Tedesco: For every class "she has the same
enthusiasm as if it's the first time. It's unbelievable. I don't know how she
does it." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus teaches patient rights in her class -- because not all health
professionals are as good as they should be, she says with characteristic
candor. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 `Like it is' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Nesbitt's obstetrics ward is a softer, quieter, more-carpeted world than
the rest of Nesbitt Hospital. In the entrance hall hangs a framed black and
white photograph of a muscular, bare-chested father cradling a naked baby. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "Everything that we had done up there was done for a purpose," Tribus says.
"That picture is there to provide the concept to young men that it's OK to
hold their baby and love it. And they're not going to be targeted as a sissy." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus, unlike her ward, seems neither soft nor quiet. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Of her management style, she says, "I say it just like it is. I gave 'em
hell when they deserved it." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Her candor knows few limits. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 During the 1972 Hurricane Agnes flood, stranded for days in the flooded
hospital, Tribus prevented the National Guard from comandeering the room where
she cared for a fragile, premature baby. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "You and your officers can go to hell," Tribus informed the soldiers,
barracading herself in the room with the baby, Michael Reilly, now 20. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The `next career' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus turned 61 on Saturday. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "I feel like I'm only mid-life," she says. "We come of good stock." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Her grandmother lived to be 105; her mother is 86. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The Tribuses raised five children -- including one who required home
therapy for polio as a youngster and one with Down syndrome -- in the days
when women lost seniority and benefits when they took maternity leave. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 She has taken care that her own staff has an easier time balancing family
with profession. After nurses describe her as "mother," they mention Tribus
made it possible for them to take care of a sick mother or child, to attend a
distant funeral. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "I've kind of been the social worker for the department," Tribus says. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 She's thinking of using that experience in her next career. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Yes, that's what she said: her next career. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "I may go on to school again. I'd love to be a marriage counselor. I've
been doing it informally all these years. You think I'm crazy," she says. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 But people expect it of Tribus. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "That woman's wheels are turning all the time," says Young Schell. "If
Dorothy believes in what she is doing, there is no end to what she can do." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Sorry to see her go &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Tribus moved from her office Nov. 13, staying until 2:30 a.m. to talk with
all three nursing shifts. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 She didn't say goodbye. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "They have to see that I'm OK," she says. "I am not retiring. ... I have no
intention of leaving them." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 In her new job, Tribus plans to be an advocate for women, the handicapped
and, well, mankind in general. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 For her staff, the adjustment is difficult. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "Yes, my staff is sorry to see me go. But they know me and I fight for my
women. I fight for families. And that's why I'm excited about this new job...I
have a wild imagination. I would love to see this hospital here have home
follow-up, for us to go home and visit with the mom (after childbirth)...The
supports aren't out there for young families...If we really advocate and
support women, we can turn this whole community around." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Quietly, twisting a paper napkin in her hand, Tribus says, "There comes a
time in a child's life that a mother has to learn to let go. It doesn't mean
that she doesn't love that child. You have to let them go and trust that
they're going to have the values to carry on." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "That's the way I feel about my staff."

Nesbitt Hospital Nurse Leaves Legacy Of Love Nurses Rally 'round The `mother' Of The Obstetrics Unit: Dorothy Tribus