Helen Deneka, a nurse at Baptist Tipton, won the Baptist Health Sciences University’ 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award. A 1946 graduate of the Baptist School of Nursing, Deneka, 88, is one of the oldest working nurses in the United States. Below is an article about Deneka that was featured in Baptist Leader two years ago.
For more than 65 years, Helen Baddour Deneka has provided a friendly face and quality care to patients in Baptist Memorial hospitals throughout the Mid-South.
The daughter of Lebanese immigrants, Deneka was born in Munford, Tenn. Her father owned a grocery store in town, and her mother raised six children, including twin boys who were born at home weighing more than 8 pounds each.
Growing up in the South in the 1930s was a much different experience for Deneka than growing up today is for modern youths. Her days were spent helping her mother in the kitchen and looking after her younger siblings.
When she was 7 years old, her older brother was rushed to St. Joseph Hospital in Memphis, where he was immediately taken into surgery. He suffered a ruptured appendix and died on the operating table.
“Back then, they didn’t know what was wrong until they were in the operating room,” she said. “By the time he was in surgery, it was too late to do anything for him.”
As a teenager, Deneka sold tickets at the Munford Theater, earning $3 a week, and during the summer, she worked at a department store in Millington for $5 a week.
Her mother encouraged her to pursue a career in nursing, and in 1943, she entered the nurse training program at Baptist Memorial Hospital in downtown Memphis.
“It was a lot different than it is now,” she said. “The rooms did not have restrooms or telephones. Student nurses had to be impeccably dressed, and our uniforms were inspected every morning at 6:45. If there was something wrong with your attire, you were sent back to your room to change.”
Nurses were required to sterilize all medical items, hand sharpen needles and mix the fluids for IV bags, which could take several hours.
The students had to follow strict guidelines while in the nursing program. One rule was especially difficult for Deneka’s father to follow.
“He was always bringing me food from home, which was against the rules,” she said. “I remember one time he brought me a watermelon. After my roommate and I ate it, she put the rinds in the trash on every floor but ours. We were never caught.”
When she graduated in 1946, Deneka decided to pursue her certification in anesthesia. To do so required moving to Detroit for a year.
“I was scared to death because I had never been outside Memphis,” she said. “I didn’t know anyone there, but someone did pick me up and take me to church on every Sunday I was off.”
When Deneka returned to Memphis, she began working as an anesthesia nurse at the Baptist Medical Center.
She worked with several urologists during her time at the Medical Center, including Dr. Thomas Moore, who was the original owner of Graceland.
“Dr. Moore actually named it Graceland,” she said. “After he passed away, his wife sold it to Elvis Presley for $1 million.”
Within a few years of her return to Memphis, her neighbor began trying to arrange a blind date for her with a naval officer. Deneka turned her down, so she took it upon herself to arrange a meeting.
“I was invited to a party at the military base, and my neighbor invited me to go,” she said. “I didn’t know that Harry was going to be there, as well. We met, just kind of clicked and were married the next year.”
Deneka worked in anesthesia until 1981, when her youngest sons were in school. Wanting to be able to spend time with them, she left Baptist to stay with them and help her husband run his store in Millington.
However, she could not stay away from health care for long. In 1986, after her youngest son graduated high school, Deneka returned to Baptist, this time as a recovery room nurse at Baptist Tipton.
“I have worked hard all of my life, and I was never sorry that I returned to work,” she said. “I love nursing more than anything I have ever done.”
Deneka’s supervisor, Debra Kidd, has worked with her for more than 25 years and said Deneka can still “run circles” around younger nurses.
“Helen is so dependable,” she said. “She has always worked whenever our unit has needed her, even when she wasn’t feeling her best. Her patients love her, and I have received many notes telling me how wonderful it was to have Helen as their nurse.”
When not working, Deneka enjoys playing bridge, attending alumni events at the Baptist Health Sciences University, reading and cooking authentic Lebanese meals. She has even had some of her best recipes printed in a cookbook for family members.
She is unsure how much longer she’ll work before permanently retiring, but she has a lifetime of memories she will take with her.
“I have had a lot of nice patients and experiences in my time with Baptist,” she said. “I was working when penicillin was discovered, when Archie Manning was a patient and the day Elvis died. It’s been a full and wonderful career.”