With a Dauntless Spirit: Alaska Nursing in Dog-Team Days.

360 Pages·2003·0.98 MB·English

by  Effie Gramham

With a Dauntless Spirit
Alaska Nursing in Dog-Team Days

With a Dauntless Spirit
Alaska Nursing in Dog-Team Days
Edited with an Introduction and Commentary by
Effi e Graham
Jackie Pfl aum
Elfrida Nord
University of Alaska Press
Fairbanks
© 2003 University of Alaska Press
Box 756240-UAF
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6240
[email protected]
www.uaf.edu/uapress
This publication was printed on acid-free paper that meets the mini-
mum requirements for the American National Standard for Information
Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials ANSI
Z39.48-1984.
Publication design and production by Sue Mitchell, Inkworks.
Cover design by Dixon J. Jones.
Cover photos: Top: The Bear (reprinted with permission from Anchorage
Museum of History and Art, #1381-164-16). Bottom, left to right: dog
sled courtesy of Robert Stevens; Red Cross Nurse Madeline de Foras
(reprinted with permission from Alaska Nurses’ Association collec-
tion, #78-27-03N, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska
Fairbanks); Augusta (Gussie) Mueller, courtesy of the North Slope
Borough’s Inupiat History, Language, and Culture Commission; Alma
Carlson (reprinted with permission from Alaska Nurses’ Association
collection, #18-27-12N, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of
Alaska Fairbanks).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
With a dauntless spirit : Alaska nursing in dog-team days / edited by Effi e
Graham, Jackie Pfl aum, and Elfrida Nord.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-889963-61-5 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 1-889963-62-3 (pbk. :
alk. paper)
1. Nurses—Alaska—Biography. I. Graham, Effi e A. II. Pfl aum, Jackie.
III. Nord, Elfrida.
RT34 .W55 2003
610.73’092’2798--dc21
2003002157
To
Catherine (Kitty) Gair
and the Alaska Nurses Association Committee
who collected these stories before it was too late

Contents
Acknowledgements .....................................................................................ix
Introduction ................................................................................................xi
Chapter 1: Women who Could .......................................................................1
Chapter 2: The Times and the Context .......................................................9
Chapter 3: We Saved Some Lives: Lula Welch .............................................21
Memoirs by Lula Welch (1956) .............................................................23
Chapter 4: We had More Fun Than Enough: Augusta Mueller ..................37
Letters written by Augusta (Gussie) Mueller, 1922–1926 ....................40
Chapter 5: I Have Traveled Over Eleven Thousand Miles:
Stella Louisa Fuller ............................................................................123
Letters and Reports Written by Stella L. Fuller, 1922–1924 ................127
Chapter 6: The Country is Beautiful, Beautiful Now: Gertrude Fergus ...167
Letters written by Gertrude Fergus 1926–1927 ...................................170
Chapter 7: That Takes a Lot of Guts: Mildred Huffman Keaton ...............219
Excerpt from Mildred Keaton’s Autobiography ...............................224
Chapter 8: I Experienced the Lord’s Providing: Alma Alvida Carlson .......259
Letters written by Alma A. Carlson 1934–1947 ..................................263
Memoir, tape recorded in 1995 ..........................................................282
Conclusion ...............................................................................................305
Glossary of Medical Terms .......................................................................307
Bibliography .............................................................................................313
Appendix: From the U.S. Civil Service Commission, 8 June 1938,
Concerning Appointments to the Alaska Division
of the Bureau of Indian Affairs ..........................................................317
Index ........................................................................................................325
vii

A
cknowledgements
Many persons have been involved in the evolution and
production of this volume, and this over a very long
period. It began in 1956 with the Alaska Nurses Association,
its committee on nursing history, and particularly Catherine
Gair, then president of the association. The evidence of their
work is concretely present in the extensive fi les preserved
in the archives of the Rasmuson Library at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks.
Connie Blair Brehm, while on the University of Alaska
Anchorage nursing faculty, described the archival collection
to Effi e Graham, exciting her interest. Nancy Yaw Davis, an-
thropologist, encouraged Effi e Graham to pursue this area as
a post-retirement project. Ruth Benson of Fairbanks assisted
by reading materials, helping select, and editing lengthy
ones. Gail McGuill, president of the association in the early
1990s, wrote a letter of personal support and of the support
of the association. Marjorie J. Hill of Maine read and helped
edit other materials.
Relatives of the nurses in this collection—the Newsome
Bakers of Clallam Bay, Washington, Glannie Wiehe of Prairie
Valley, Kansas, Mildred Ruthruff of Snohomish, Washington,
and Ted Keaton of Marysville, Washington—actively gave
ix