Valborg Skorpen

October 12, 1922 - January 15, 2010

Valborg Egge Skorpen , R.N., was born October 12, 1922 to Thomas and Edwina (Egge) Skorpen on the family’s farm in Nelson Township, Barnes County. She was baptized at Sheyenne Valley Lutheran Church. Valborg attended Ellis and King rural schools after beginning her education at home. In 1940 she was graduated from Valley City High School. That fall she began her undergraduate studies at Valley City State Teachers College. After two years there she transferred to the College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, Minn., from which she was graduated in 1945 with a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. Following graduation, Val moved to Helena, Mont., where she was head surgical nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital for two years. She then returned to her home farm and began working as office nurse in the Valley City practice of Dr. W.H. Gilsdorf for several years, but Val never lost her love for Helena and for Montana. Following her employment by Dr. Gilsdorf, Val taught in the School of Nursing at Mercy Hospital. Encouraged both by the opening of Interstate 94 between Valley City and Jamestown and by a physician from New York City working at Mercy Hospital who told her “a forty-five mile commute to work is nothing,” Val began work at the North Dakota State Hospital in Jamestown in 1959. She initially served as associate director of psychiatric nursing education, but later became acting director. During these years she was very active in the N. Dak. State Nursing Association and served on the State Board of Nursing. Her colleagues honored her for her service to the profession as North Dakota nurse of the year. For twenty-five years, until her retirement, Val faithfully commuted from her home on the farm south of Valley City to Jamestown, five days a week, in every kind of weather. Few things gave her more pleasure in retirement than knowing she could stay home during a blizzard. For seven years, beginning in 1956, Val served as an officer with the U.S. Army Reserve 311th General Hospital. She retired with the rank of major. Val was a member of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, where she was confirmed. She was a lifetime member of the Beta Sigma Phi social sorority. She contributed to many conservation and animal welfare organizations, and was a generous supporter of Concordia College, the College of St. Scholastica, and Valley City State University. Val cared deeply about quality nursing care and excellent nursing education, and her professional life was a full one. Yet her true love and passion were to be found elsewhere. Her family, the farm that was her home nearly all her life, and everything that is part of farm life—seedtime and harvest, nature up close, lambs and colts, calves and kittens: such things as these always gave her the greatest joy. Val’s health declined significantly after a fall in her home in 2006. Her family wish to extend special thanks to those who helped her during the last three years of her earthly life: Sandy Randklev, who made it possible for Val to stay in her own home until this past year; the staff of Hospice of the Red River Valley, especially Helene, Becky, and Gloria; and the nurses and aides at Hi-Acres Manor in Jamestown, where Val moved last August. Val was not only a nurse by training and profession, but by temperament as well. No one appreciated quality nursing care more than she. Val is survived by her sister, Borgni Edin, Jamestown; nephews Charles Edin and his children Charles and Taylor, Bismarck, and Bradley, rural Valley City; niece Barbara and her friend Donald Brummond, Fargo; and several cousins. She was preceded in death by her parents.