At Johns Hopkins, "our first love is the School of Nursing," says Elizabeth Trimble, a public sector lawyer whose family members include generations of doctors and nurses. Though the establishment of this scholarship fund in 1996 was in I. Ridgeway and Frances H. Trimble's honor, in recent years their daughter, Elizabeth, has become an active supporter of the School as well.
The late I. Ridgeway Trimble was educated and trained at Johns Hopkins in the 1920s. He met Frances when she was training as a doctor in gynecology at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and he was serving in the South Pacific in World War II. They married in 1945 and came back to Baltimore to start a family and continue their medical careers: he as a surgeon, she as the medical director of Planned Parenthood of Maryland for 27 years.
So, what is it about nursing education that the Trimble family of doctors and lawyers believes is so important? "The quality of the students, their backgrounds, and their vision are really impressive," says Frances. She rem-inisces that her husband experienced first-hand the critical contributions of nurses in the field hospitals during the war and those doctors developed a real appreciation for and commitment to the nurses. I. Ridgeway Trimble later became a strong advocate of the re-establishment of a nursing school at Johns Hopkins.
sa"The idea that there is a fund for mom and dad at the School of Nursing is really wonderful, especially for dad because it was very important to him that nurses be awarded bachelor's degrees," says Elizabeth. "He really believed that his patients did well because of Hopkins nurses; he had a tremendous respect for them."
