The Right Pulse

Some people are so friendly and comfortable with you, it’s as if you’ve known them all your life. Muriel Wagner is such a person.

A nurse most of her life, Muriel, at age eighty-six, still spends much of her day nursing others. She is retired, but the hospital staff still refers Muriel as a visiting nurse for homebound elderly patients or others who need her special care.

She fixes meals for and visits three people a day, besides nearly always having a patient stay in her home who requires periodic care around the clock. Occasionally Muriel has single sisters board in her home as well. “I’ve never had my own children to care for,” she says. “And caring for others is the thing I do best.”

Muriel’s colorful flower garden and attractive home affirm that she is capable of more than nursing, as do her creative sewing projects, including upholstered furniture. And the youth of the Madison First Ward, Madison Wisconsin Stake, know her generosity with her excellent cookies and cakes.

Still, Muriel is best known for having her finger on the right pulse. Since her conversion to the Church more than two decades ago, after her husband, Frank, died, she has cared for people’s spiritual as well as physical health. She has served two missions for the Church, and she performed name extractions even as her eyesight was failing.—Mary E. Corbet, Middleton, Wisconsin