USM Student Uncovers Kathy Ducey’s Nursing Pin After 37 Years

When University of Saint Mary nursing student Jessica Bradford began sorting through her late grandmother’s jewelry box last summer, she expected to find a few sentimental items – some eclectic keepsakes or costume jewelry. Instead, a gold nursing pin engraved with the name “Kathleen Ducey” caught her eye.

That small find would reconnect two women across three decades of Saint Mary nursing education.

Ducey completed her RN-BSN degree at Saint Mary in 1990, while working at Saint John Hospital. She later returned to the university as a faculty member of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program in 2006 and taught until her retirement in 2020.

The gold pin represented Ducey’s earliest step in her nursing journey – a symbol of pride from her 1967 diploma program at Mary Immaculate Hospital School of Nursing in Jamaica, New York. With the school long closed, she believed the treasured emblem was lost forever.

In 1988, Ducey rushed out of a shift at Saint John Hospital after receiving a call that her father had passed away. The pin was on her work jacket, and when she returned a few weeks later, Ducey couldn’t find it anywhere.

“It was like this little piece of my life had been missing for so long,” she said. “When Jessica reached out, I was actually in New York with a classmate from nursing school. It was just so meaningful. I cried. I couldn’t believe it.”

Bradford’s grandmother, Evelyn, worked in the laundry for the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth and Saint John Hospital for many years. She retired in the early 1990s and continued to speak fondly of the Sisters. Evelyn was the person who encouraged Bradford to go to nursing school. She passed away in May – just weeks before her granddaughter started in USM’s Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program.

“She always used to tell me, ‘Oh, you should go to nursing school,’ because she loved the school and the Sisters,” Bradford said. “She just raved about the college.”

Bradford was balancing the rigorous nursing school curriculum and raising four children when she found Ducey’s pin. She did a quick online search, discovered the mutual connection to Saint Mary, and her jaw dropped. The pair met in July, when Ducey held her pin for the first time in nearly 40 years.

“To think that she’s a Saint Mary student – it was like this little circle,” Ducey said. “I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, a Saint Mary alumna and former faculty member, and this new student was returning my pin. It was incredible.”