Catholic hospital,Waterloo,IA,
Can’t give out drugs to stop ,
Err abstain from pregnancy ,
Can placed disabled hard working nurse who worked eighteen years in ER on temporary disability,
Nurse Atta we will call her,
Worked sixteen hour days,
Nurses use to stay in rooms not used so short on staff,
Can’t now,now they stay in hotel rooms,
Not compensated by hospital for,
Workahollicks,{means worked all the time}
I tell her to go to labor board,
She says she can’t,
Temporary disability means they can call her back to work,
At work nurse Atta walks with a walker,
She hasn’t on any of our trips,
Years ago when working rescue Atta was injured,
They replaced hip she needs a knee replaced,
She’s one hell of a girl,
I met her in the Walmart parking lot in Independence Iowa,
She has no bed,
She has no furnace,
Last winter she heated her home with electric heaters,
An old Amish home,
Her mom {adopted mom,the woman who loves her/not bore her a good English woman}
Her birth mom pregnant one Rumspringa,sixteen,
Met a trucker.,
Rumspringa allows young Amish to experience life not Amish before they are baptized I’m from Allamakee in northern Iowa I wrote my theses at Luther College from six years research on the Amish,
Never learned this ‘not all Amish allow this!’
Her father would not allow her to return with the child,
The girl had told the trucker,
He told her he was married!
Atta was born and left like a unwanted animal by a door of an ophanage,in Waterloo,
Her mom and dad adopted her gave her ,
Love,
Pride,
Workethic,
Taught Atta to be the good hearted,hard working animal loving woman she is,
Her daughter and best friend live in Waterloo now,
Last winter for heat they road around in the car,
She’s paying off her electric heating bill still at $$$ a month,
Heated with electric heaters her high ceiling home,
Temporary disability pays $400/2 weeks,
A huge paycut having worked over forty every week for eighteen years on call in ER,
Can’t complain to Iowa Labor board,
Was told is told daily they will call her,
Every day no call comes,
She is beyond worried,
Her moms eighty nine and deft,
Moving Friday to live right across from Atta’s home,
This poet is honored to call this fifty-nine year old adopted family,
This part native American,Amish American,
Jipped by the Catholic Hospital out of her livelihood,eighteen years in the ER gets her less a month then I get on disability at sixty-four,
Come on Iowa we need to help this girl out,
This Iowan of Fayette,County,
Atta in hanging in like a kitten in need of help,
Never went to a food bank I took her to the best in Calmar,Iowa,
All I can offer her is friendship,
Val K.Heike Whitewolf,
Whitewolf Books,Quasqueton,Iowa,
My bookstore on PangoBooks | handle: @valwhitewolf | https://pangobooks.com/bookstore/valwhitewolf
https://www.amazon.com/Ethnography-Amish-Allamakee-County-Northern/dp/1522712518
Val's Whitewolf Books 