Legacy nurse returns after 'flunking' retirement
September 03, 2025
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Connemara McNicholas retired from Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in 2018 ending an impressive tenure at one of Portland’s oldest hospitals. The former secretary took some classes, volunteered at the Oregon Historical Society and traveled a bit.
None of it worked.
“I flunked retirement,” she said.
Connemara returned and now holds the distinction of being the longest-tenured employee at Legacy Good Samaritan. As Legacy celebrates the 150th anniversary of Legacy Good Samaritan, Connemara shared stories and reflected on her 54-year-long career.
She first arrived in 1971 during the Nixon administration, earning $2.36 an hour. It wasn’t the highest paying hospital in town, but she grew up nearby and her father wanted her to work someplace nearby.
“I could walk to work from our house,” she said.
A shared room cost a patient $23 a day. Private rooms went for $28 a day. Doctors ran the hospital. She saw her share of people treated for severe trauma following accidents on Highway 30. These were the days before specialized trauma units like the one at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center.
“Good Sam was like a small town,” she said. “We were unconnected to the other hospitals.”
The Legacy Good Samaritan footprint was scattered about Northwest Portland. The physicians and surgeon’s hospital sat where today’s System Office exists. The Wilcox building at 22nd Avenue and Marshall Street was home to the maternity ward and a small pediatric unit that was in the basement. The emergency department was on 22nd Avenue.
Connemara’s uniform when she first started consisted of white shoes and dress, pants were not allowed.
Her career also gave her a front row seat to the advancements in technology that made the way to Legacy Good Samaritan.
“I remember when our first MRI arrived and was put in the basement protect against radiation,” she said.
Today, Connemara works in Legacy’s Weight and Diabetes Institute where she shares her institutional knowledge with others in the department. Her coworkers relish her stories. Like the time a patient delivered a baby on the lawn outside the Wilcox building. Or the days when patients were allowed to smoke in their rooms.
“They think I’m a fountain of wisdom,” she said. “I like it.”
Learn more about Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center's 150th Anniversary |
