NOTES – 1943

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 17: PUBLICATIONS PMSS
NOTES 1942
October

NOTES – 1943

“Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School”
October

GALLERY

This October 1943 number of the Pine Mountain Notes is dedicated in gratitude to the long and valued medical work of this School and especially to the devoted services of our doctors and nurses standing by faithfully during these war years on this small secluded sector of the home front.

TAGS: NOTES – 1943 OCTOBER: doctors, Greasy Creek, Rock House Creek, medicine, Dr. Emma Tucker, Dr. Francis Tucker, Dr. Margaret Tucker, Glyn A. Morris, Dr. Arthur Tucker, Elizabeth Jane Tucker, Grace Feng, Grace Rood, Dr. Oma Creech, Elizabeth Kirkland, medical service, Clara Davis, Dr. Abby Little, Infirmary, Dr. Grace Huse, Harriet Butler, Dr. Alfreda Withington, Dr. Clark Bailey, Dr. Dillard Turner, socialized medicine, Health Association

TRANSCRIPTION: NOTES – 1943 October

P. 1

NOTES FROM THE
PINE MOUNTAIN
SETTLEMENT SCHOOL

PINE MOUNTAIN * HARLAN COUNTY * KENTUCKY
Copyright, 1943, by Pine Mountain Settlement School

Volume XVI    OCTOBER, 1943    Number II

THIS October 1943 number of the Pine Mountain Notes is dedicated in gratitude to the long and valued medical work of this School and especially to the devoted services of our doctors and nurses standing by faithfully during these war years on this small secluded sector of the home front.

However, the strange fortunes of war have transplanted into our midst from half way around the world the two Tuckers, Dr. Emma and Dr. Francis. China’s loss has become Pine Mountain’s gain. They come to us from forty years’ experience in north and west China and find themselves impressed by the similarities of rural work in the two far distant places. The needs of humanity are universal.

May we introduce the remarkable Tucker family?

Dr. Emma Tucker, Northwestern University Medical School, and Dr. Francis Tucker, Rush Medical College, with their four children: Dr. William Tucker, University of Chicago Medical School; Dr. Margaret Tucker, Rush Medical College; Dr. Arthur Tucker, Yale Medical School; and Dr. Francis C. Tucker, Harvard Medical School, the father of the only grandchild, Miss Elizabeth Jane Tucker, born at Pine Mountain Infirmary, June, 1943.

We wish you could listen spellbound with us to the stories of heroism and devotion from their years in China, years of endeavor and success recognized by China herself in high measure, see their pictures of these far lands, feel the glow of inspired purpose to which they are simple testimony. One patient, after a visit to the Infirmary, said, “My body was sick. but my heart was sick, too, and I guess Dr. Emma has cured them both.”

Do you wonder our horizons have been widened beyond the ridge of these mountains, our sympathies enlarged, our imaginations stretched, and our loyalties with a valiant ally strengthened?

Dr. Emma has charge of most of in-patients and the laboratory work while Dr. Francis shares in the dispensary service, and travels by foot and horseback over the outlying areas up and down the creeks and hollows. He has allowed us to pass on to you some excerpts from their daily journal.

FROM THE DOCTOR’S JOURNAL

An anxious husband appears and says that his wife is having trouble. I agree to go in his rickety Ford on condition that she be brought to the hospital if possible. The race to get there, some thirteen miles, starts, and the Burma road is surely no worse in its roughest parts. Two-thirds of the way there, the Ford develops bronchitis and boilitis. Slower and slower we go, often filling the radiator, and finally stop at a saw mill, where we are able to get a good Chevrolet car. We arrive at the house at last to find matters not too bad, and the patient and the numerous neighbors in the 1-1/2 room house agree that it will be best to get to the hospital. We fix her up on the rear seat and are off. Now and then we…

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…stop and I examine the patient. The husband rides with us. The patient is sure she is going to die. Half way to the hospital, I ask that the car stop, and young Mr. Chevrolet Cooper is born. Chevrolet and his mother seem to be quite all right, and we continue our journey to the hospital, though now we take matters rather more easily. Would that the road had not been so rough on the first half, but all’s well that ends well. The parents are delighted with big bouncing Chevrolet.

 * * *

The mule’s name was Bell, and yesterday, a bright sunny Sunday morning, saddle bags and myself mounted her to respond to an emergency call seven miles away, down Greasy Creek and up Rock House Creek. The creeks were full and a day or so before had been two feet higher. We crossed the tumbling mountain streams as they continued their frothy calisthenics, and I was glad that Bell was sure-footed. A few land slides here and there necessitated detours. Two hours of up-hill and down-dale trail, with many crossings of the creeks brought us to Mr. Joseph’s home, where his wife was about to be delivered. Medical attention was given to quiet her, and I was asked to have dinner. Milk, beans, salt pork, and fried potatoes, plus corn bread were very acceptable, and I had a good chance to talk over the wisdom of getting the patient to Pine Mountain hospital. They agreed that this would be well, and I endeavored to hasten the making of a stretcher. Two poles were cut and the bark taken off. Quilts were tacked across these, cross pieces nailed on, and we were ready. I had suggested four men to aid in carrying the patient, for we needed to move lively, but eleven appeared in response to the call. Everyone helps his neighbor in these parts. Old Mrs. W., who is 89 years old, had done the best she could as midwife, and she anxiously asked if she had done any harm. She had, but my reply was that we were all grateful for her willingness to do what she could. The procession moved on. This time I walked, so as to be with the patient. A speedy horse had been sent ahead to Pine Mountain, and so it was possible for the school to send a car, which met us as far as a car could go. In about an hour the mother was gladdened by the arrival of the fine baby girl she wanted. Dr. Emma and others assisted in the arrival of another baby girl at noon, and this morning about five still another mother had her wish for a girl satisfied. Again, all’s well that ends well.

 * * *

Muley was produced and saddled, and I started up Greasy Creek. The sparkling clear water of this stream was a delight, and it talked back at me all the way, though the notes were muted where frozen over. A mile on my way I was hailed. Old Mr. H. would like me to see his granddaughter. This I was glad to do and also prescribed for another member of the family. Here as on the wall of every cabin hung the rifle, and the men at least know how to use it. I arranged to send the medicine. One of the difficulties of work afield, one misses the completeness of the modern hospital. But bricks of a sort can be made without straw, so one does the best he can, and urges the patients to come to the Pine Mountain hospital whenever possible. Would that that Hospital were ten times as large.

I stopped at the Turner home, and inquired how the two girls were, following their broncho-pneumonia. It was a delight to find them up and playing with the other children. These do indeed seem to be a sturdy folk. As I traveled on, very few people are met on the road, but all speak most cordially. I am often called “doc”, by the folks I have seen only once or twice, an indication of the general friendliness. I used my “buggy” all the way to Big Laurel, and then sent muley back, as it was a mere three mile walk from there.

 * * *

It was my place to go a few days ago with the County Health nurse to two of the schools to give typhoid “shots” to the pupils who needed them.

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The first school was Little Laurel, a typical one-room school of the mountains. A hole or two in the floor aided ventilation, and there were a few individual drinking glasses besides the general dipper in the water pail. A few students were bare-foot, but nearly all were well, if plainly dressed. Mothers with their babes soon appeared to be vaccinated, and after that all in the school of thirty-five or so were quite willing to have their inoculations. We went on to the Big Laurel school a few miles further down Greasy Creek, and there found a two room school, though only one room now in use. Here we gave the inoculations as before, the teacher cordially cooperating. I asked one begrimed boy when he had bathed last. He replied “Why I don’t know.” One infant was carried by its mother, the latter without stocking or shoes. A burly miner on seeing that a ten year old objected to her inoculation, picked her up and held her like a vise while the medicine was given, but all the others were quite willing. We ran out of vaccine but during the afternoon gave some 120 inoculations. A fine group of potential citizens, these, and one rejoices that war will be no more by the time, they reach maturity. The coming generation will build better than the one now moving to the front.

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About nine last evening I was hastily summoned to see a man about two miles from here on Greasy Creek. A miner from the other side of the mountain was said to have taken some sixty tablets of aspirin. The messenger had a flashlight and we got over the ground quite rapidly. Past the Pine Mountain post office and across Greasy we kept on till we came to a gate into a farm yard, where fierce dogs barked. A call to silence the dogs enabled us to stumble up quite a hill to a four room house. Each of the rooms was seemingly filled with beds and folks. The patient was comatose, and a hypodermic was at once given. The bottle was shown from which he had taken nearly fifty tablets, and then had added enough more from another bottle to make the count definitely 59 tablets, each five grains. To my surprise the patient objected violently to the use of a stomach pump, and the relatives were useless to help in the matter. Finally it developed that he had had emesis, and eliminated a large quantity of the drug. He now demanded his boots as he said he was leaving. My professional opinion was that it would be a good thing for him to move about and as the relatives advised against force, he got his boots, and retreated to a rear room. The next morning the man started for his job, none the worse for internal wear, though the dosage was many times the recorded fatal dosage.

 * * *

This turbulent present but accentuates the perennial health problems we have believed, since the very beginning of this School, were of primary importance and only underscores the more emphatically our consequent obligations.

In that historic company on horseback which rode down into our valley in the spring of 1913 under the lead of a mountain guide, were our two far-seeing founders, a graduate nurse and a woman architect. The campaign which Miss Clara Davis then began against hook-worm, trachoma and flies is still being waged.

Dr. Abby Little followed in 1916 to work under the picturesque and pioneer difficulties of Old Log until 1918. In 1920 the Infirmary was built with outreachings into the community through the medical and social work, closely allied, four miles down Greasy, under Dr. Grace Huse and Miss Harriet Butler. In her autobiography “Mine Eyes Have Seen” Dr. Alfreda Withington vividly describes her work as the “lady Doc” from 1924 to 1931.

Since her regime there has been a succession of doctors living at the School, working out from there by foot or horseback, mule, or Ford, with clinics up and down the creeks. Each one has made a unique contribution to the School and the neighborhood. Dr. Clark Bailey, of Harlan, now a…

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…member of the Board of Trustees, has been a long time friend, staunch and expert in the time of need. The continuity of the work has been maintained by the faithfulness of Miss Grace Rood, Oberlin College and Johns-Hopkins graduate, who is beginning her seventh year as school nurse and superintendent of the hospital. Each year has endeared her more to our people. We can but echo a neighbor’s tribute “I say Miss Rood’s the queen of all.” Through the Tuckers Miss Grace Feng of Shantung Province, China, of the Massachusetts Memorial Hospital, Boston, came to us for the month of August to fill Miss Rood’s place during her well deserved vacation. Miss Feng was a winning ambassador of international good will.

Miss Rood has been active in training some of our Senior girls in community medical services. They help at the Infirmary, take care of the new babies, keep medical records, accompany the doctor on his clinics, help give inoculations in the district schools, render first aid, and are often inspired to continue their way at accredited training schools. These girls, by their helpfulness and sympathy, link the School in a special way to the needs of the locality and have persuaded many a reluctant mountain mother to utilize the Infirmary so that our birth record has risen considerably in the last few years. Two of our graduates are now serving in the U. S. Army as nurses, four others have entered nurses training. Dr. Oma Creech is a practicing physician in Kentucky and Dr. Dillard Turner is with the U. S. Army in Sicily.

It is interesting to note that we have been pioneering in socialized medicine and that the experiment is working well. For in 1932 our local Health Association was formed whereby a membership of $10 in cash or produce insures free medical treatment for a family, no matter how large, for a year at the Pine Mountain Infirmary.

One of our Infirmary needs was for an X-ray, generously given by Miss Elizabeth Kirkland.

This Infirmary of ten beds is the only medical center for an area covering 400 square miles. Our doctors and nurses not only maintain the health of the School family, but are the medical recourse for some 250 families.

MEDICAL STATISTICS

Past year Past five years
School cases 2338 7295
Staff visits 128 1396
Neighbor’s calls 1588 4622
Bed patient days 2309 8943
Babies delivered (No deaths) 56 190
District school inoculations 950 2500

October 1, 1943
Rx For Increased Vitamin Efficiency:

Electric Refrigerator $250
Six good mattresses $150
Two dozen single sheets $30
Two dozen pinafores for student nurse aides $36
Five hundred paper tray covers $2
One thousand paper napkins $2
Gay China for trays
Money for special diets
Unlimited diapers and safety pins

Interested friends please supply the medication called for.

Emma B. Tucker M.D.
Francis F. Tucker M.D.

NOTE:  The Pine Mountain Family Album takes the place of the 1943 Volume XVI, No. 2, of the NOTES.

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NOTES – 1944

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