This bibliography includes oral histories from the Montana Historical Society’s Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana Oral History Project. The primary goal of this project was to document the experiences of longtime physicians, nurses, nurse educators, emergency medical technicians, and lay health care providers in serving the medical needs of Montanans in the 20th century. Interviewees discuss the impact of weather, distance, and road conditions on treatment; the role new technologies, drugs, and regulations played in expanding services; recruitment of health care professionals to the state; nursing education opportunities in Montana and the region; and home care remedies and treatments prior to modern medicine. Where possible, audio format is noted. The collection is divided between oral histories that have been transcribed and those that have not. Where possible, length of typed transcription is noted.
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Transcribed:
Anna Shanon interview, 1989 November 22. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1303). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 20 min.) 46-page transcript. Topics include her childhood in Dillon; experiences as a student nurse at Missouri Baptist Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri; initial experiences in nursing; work as dean of the Montana State University School of Nursing in Bozeman; organizing the consortium of the Schools of Nursing in Montana; the economics and complexities of nursing and nursing education; and effects of legislative and political issues on nursing.
Beatrice Kaasch interview, 1989 November 16. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1300). Montana Historical Society Archives. 3 audio tapes (3 hr.) 89-page transcript. Topics include her ancestry and early childhood; homesteading; the 1930s Depression; nursing school; nursing techniques; her job as a science instructor at St. James, St. Vincent, and St. John hospitals and at Carroll College in Helena; her various nursing positions; changes in nursing education; her work as president of the Montana State Board of Nursing; rural health care; and nursing credentials.
Bertha Kenison interview, 1989 December 6. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1304). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (2 hr.) 13-page transcript. Topics include her childhood in Lima in the 1920s; her work as a nurses’ aide at the Barrett Hospital in Dillon from 1959 to 1975; changes in health care; and raising children in Dillon.
Bonnie Adee interview. 1990 January 23. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1310). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes. 39-page transcript. Bonnie Adee (b. 1947) describes her involvement in the St. Peter’s Hospital Hospice Program including its early beginnings, its administration by the Westmont Health Services, and its acquisition by St. Peter’s in the early 1980s; funding of programs; development of volunteer and professional hospice care nurses, aides, and counselors; affects of liability laws and state and federal legislation on hospices locally and nationally; care of terminally ill people; and philosophies of death.
Clarabel Bogut interview, 1989 December 6. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1305). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr.) 40-page transcript. Topics include her childhood near Malta; disease and quarantines; her training at Deaconess Hospital in Great Falls; her fifteen-year career as a college nurse at Western Montana College in Dillon; and her work as a Beaverhead County health nurse.
Corrine Deriana interview, 1990 August 06. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1338). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 40 min.) 48-page transcript. Topics include her early life on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota; Indian medicine and health care; family life on the reservation; the 1930s Depression and World War II; attending Indian boarding school in Chemwa, Oregon; her work as a nursing assistant in Portland, Oregon; her work as a tray girl and nursing assistant at Galen and Warm Springs state hospitals; her experiences with tuberculosis and silicosis patients; the treatment of mental patients; American Indian views on death and dying; working at St. James Hospital in Butte; becoming a licensed practical nurse (LPN); lobbying for LPNs in Montana; working conditions in nursing homes; education and credentials for nurses; differences between registered nurses and LPNs; the Green Thumb Program; the Helena Indian Alliance; and changes in nursing and health care during her life.
Darrell Hall and Sonya Hall interview, 1990 April 5. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1321). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 20 min.) 52-page transcript. Topics include their involvement with the Western Sanders County Ambulance Service; the organization of the service; their emergency medical technician training; experiences as members of the ambulance crew; and various aspects of health care in western Sanders County.
Deana Elder interview, 1990 June 4. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1329). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 20 min.) 51-page transcript. Topics include trout-farm operations in Noxon; her involvement with the Western Sanders County Ambulance Service; her training to become an emergency medical technician; her experiences as a trainer/instructor for the ambulance service; medical and legal issues associated with operating a volunteer, rural ambulance service; and comparisons between the Western Sanders County Ambulance Service and the Libby Ambulance Service.
Eleanor Helmer interview. 1990 June 22. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1336) 2 audio tapes. 51-page transcript. Eleanor Helmer (b. 1929) discusses health care during her childhood in Fergus County, Montana; her nurses’training with the Cadet Nurse Corps in Seattle, Washington; work as a nurse in San Diego, California, during the late 1940s; relocation to Lewistown, Montana, in 1952; experiences as an obstetrics and surgical nurse, and later director of nursing at St. Joseph Hospital in Lewistown; changes in nurse education, individual attitudes, and salaries since 1948; management of hospital nurses and other personnel; and liability insurance.
Elinor “Nan” Compton interview, 1990 April 5. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1323). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 45 min.) 72-page transcript. Topics include home health care during her childhood in Heron, Montana, and Sandpoint, Idaho; her education and training in the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II; her initial nursing experiences; her work as a nurse during the construction of the Noxon Dam; her experiences as an office nurse; her employment at Bonner Hospital in Sandpoint, Idaho; and rural health care and nursing in Sanders County.
Erabert Stobie and Eldora Stobie interview, 1990 April 6. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1325). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (2 hr.) 44-page transcript. Topics include their role in the organization of the Western Sanders County Ambulance Service; personnel training; daily routine; liability insurance; and accidents.
Jan Leishman interview. 1989 November 21. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1302). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes. 54-page transcript. Jan Leishman discusses her training and education as a student nurse at Montana State University from 1976 to 1981; working in St. Ignatius and at St. James Hospital in Butte; working as a registered nurse midwife in Bozeman; the affects of liability insurance on midwifery; discrimination; rural health care; and credentials.
Joyce Coupal interview, 1990 April 3. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1319). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 15 min.) 36-page transcript. Topics include growing up as the daughter of missionaries in India; her work as a registered nurse in the maternity ward and clinic of the Murray Hospital in Butte; the emergency medical treatment of Butte miners; her experiences as a Noxon volunteer for the Western Sanders County Ambulance Service; and her views on the quality of medical care in Sanders County.
Judith O. Machler interview, 1990 June 16. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1332). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 20 min.) 34-page transcript. Topics include growing up on a homestead north of Lewistown; home medical remedies; the education and training of nurses at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Lewistown; the 1930s Depression; working as a nurse at Deaconess Hospital in Great Falls and at the Valley Vista Nursing Home in Lewistown; liability insurance for nurses; changes in nursing; and rural medical care.
Ken Byerly and Frances “Scottie” Byerly interview, 1990 June 20. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1335). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 40 min.) 35-page transcript. Topics include the history of Lewistown; the establishment of St. Joseph’s Hospital by Catholic nuns; the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic; the 1930s Depression; work as owner/editor of the local newspaper; and fund-raising for the construction of the new Central Montana Hospital. Scottie reviews her life as the daughter of a U.S. Army physician in the Philippines, Panama, and Hawaii; her education at the University of North Carolina; her marriage to Ken Byerly and move to Lewistown; state/federal regulations; St. Joseph’s Hospital and the county’s acquisition of the old hospital; recruiting health care professionals; moving patients to the new facility during a blizzard; emergency medical transportation. [See also Women as Community Builders, OH 1024].
Marge Vanderhoof interview, 1990 January 29. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1313). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 20 min.) 42-page transcript. Topics include her education and training as a nursing student in Great Falls and at Montana State University in Bozeman, ca. 1980-1986; her employment as a registered nurse at St. Peter’s Hospital in Helena; her activities as treasurer of the Montana Nurses Association; assistance to nurses recovering from drug and alcohol addictions; and other related issues.
Marie Solce Myers interview, 1990 April 2. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1318). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 20 min.) 56-page transcript. Topics include her work as an emergency medical technician for the Western Sanders County Ambulance Service from 1980 to 1990; the area in which the service operated; Montana’s Good Samaritan Law; liability insurance; and other issues related to emergency health care.
Mary Munger interview, 1991 September 23. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1349). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 50 min.) 54-page transcript. Topics include her parents’ immigration from Canada to Butte; life in Butte; home medical remedies; scarlet fever; her nursing training at St. James Hospital in Butte; working in the emergency room on injured miners; the training of psychiatric nurses at Warm Springs; the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II; the Bolton bill and federal monies for nursing scholarships; the Montana State Department of Health in Helena; preventative medicine; the attitudes of physicians toward nurses; the Montana Nurses Association; credentials for registered nurses; certification for LPNs; her work as a Lake County public health nurse; public attitudes about health care professionals; Ethel Mitchell, Agnes Pauline, and Muriel Lewis; the Forand bill and national health insurance; and salaries, work problems, and labor negotiations.
Mary Munger interview, 1991 September 23. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1511). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes; 59-page transcript. Mary Munger discusses technological changes in nursing, the American Medical Association, and various nursing organizations; labor contract negotiations and collective bargaining; the Northern Pacific Beneficial Association; her work as executive secretary of Montana Nurses Association; professional nursing standards; legislation; Medicaid and Medicare; the Montana Hospital Association; Charles Huppe, Allen Donahue, Lee Metcalf, Dorothy Bradley, and John Anderson; the American Nurses Association; illegal abortions; and her work as a nursing instructor at Carroll College and as state chair of the International Women’s Year committee.
Mona Vanek interview, 1990 April 02. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1317). Montana Historical Society Archives. 3 audio tapes (2 hr., 40 min.) 86-page transcript. Topics include health care and living conditions throughout her life; societal attitudes regarding health care; various home remedies; the effects of distance on medical care; area hospitals, clinics, and physicians; lice epidemics; childbirth and midwives; drugs; family health problems; dentists; the first physician’s assistant in western Sanders County; Louie and Madge Post and developing the Western Sanders County Ambulance Service; increasing costs of medical insurance and health care; medical liability; her involvement with the local ambulance service; and Montana’s Good Samaritan Law.
Naomi Summers interview, 1990 September 26. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1340). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 40 min.) 42-page transcript. Topics include her childhood in Kalispell; home remedies and community health care; her licensed practical nurse (LPN) education and training in Butte under the Manpower Development Training Act; her work at the Warm Springs Psychiatric Hospital; the first cardiac care unit at St. Patrick’s Hospital, Missoula; her employment at the Kalispell Regional Hospital, including flying with patients on helicopters and working in the intensive care unit; government regulations regarding nursing; her service on the Montana State Board of Nursing; differences between registered nurses and LPNs; liability insurance; medical costs; the morale of health care workers; legislation addressing impaired nurses; volunteer emergency medical technicians and transportation; the Montana Licensed Practical Nurses Association; LPN credentials; and the Montana Nurses Board.
Roberta Taylor Pullen interview, 1990 June 19. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1333). Montana Historical Society Archives. 3 audio tapes (2 hr., 20 min.) 61-page transcript. Topics include the osteopathic practice of her father, Dr. Fred Taylor; her mother’s child-rearing techniques; the quarantine of persons with contagious diseases; the “pest house”; the training of nurses at Johns Hopkins University; and her work at the Murray Clinic in Butte from 1914 to the 1970s.
Shirley McLinden interview, 1990 May 31. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1327). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 10 min.) 35-page transcript. Topics include her experiences as a member of the Western Sanders County Ambulance Service; her emergency medical technician training; ambulance vehicles; the effects of weather and distance on service; the influx of senior citizens into the county; the history of the ambulance service; and liability issues.
Stella “Sunny” Peters interview, 1992 August 6. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1352). Montana Historical Society Archives. 3 audio tapes (2 hr., 30 min.) 63-page transcript. Topics include her experiences as a nursing student in Miles City during the 1930s and her later work as a registered nurse on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.
Trudy Malone interview, 1990 September 21. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1344). Montana Historical Society Archives. 3 audio tapes (2 hr., 15 min.) 51-page transcript. Topics include her early life in North Dakota; her nursing education and training at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota; her work as a nurse; raising a family; her experiences as a U.S. Army nurse in Europe during World War II; her work as director of the Montana State Board of Nursing; the education and training of licensed practical nurses; liability insurance; changes in education and nurses’ attitudes; and her two terms as president of the Montana Nurses Association.
Vernie Burns interview, 1990 September 19. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1342). Montana Historical Society Archives. 1 audio tape (1 hr.) 33-page transcript. Topics include her early life in Tweet and Polson; her education and training at Deaconess Hospital in Great Falls during the early 1930s; her recollections of Anna Pearl Sherrick; her employment at Deaconess; the uses of penicillin; the effects of World War II; pilots ferrying military aircraft to Alaska for eventual use by the Soviet Union; raising a family; working conditions for nurses; surgical and pediatric nursing; her work as a public health nurse in Lincoln and Augusta during the 1970s; Hutterites and health care; the clinic in Lincoln and its part-time physicians; the history of the clinic’s emergency medical transportation; and the Women and Infant Children Program (WIC).
Virginia Kenyon interview, 1990 March 23. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1316). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 20 min.) 24-page transcript. Topics include her nursing education and training at Deaconess Hospital in Great Falls, beginning in 1932; her recollections of Anna Pearl Sherrick; her work as a public health nurse in Dawson and Fergus Counties from the mid-1930s to 1942; her experiences as a U.S. Army nurse with the 81st General Hospital during World War II; her later nursing experiences; and rural nursing.
Wilma Catron interview, 1990 January 22. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1309). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 40 min.) 52-page transcript. Topics include her childhood and health care training in Glasgow; experiences as a nurses’ aide at Trinity Hospital in Wolf Point and at Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital in Glasgow; and work as a hospice aide for St. Peter’s Hospital in Helena.
Wilma Nicholson interview, 1990 February 28. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1315). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes. 31-page transcript. Wilma Nicholson tells about her early life in Seattle, Washington; training, education, and service as a nurse at Providence Hospital in Seattle; her work as a nurse in the coronary care unit at St. James Hospital, Butte, Montana, in the early 1960s; experiences as a teacher of students in a vocational program for licensed practical nurses in Butte; other nursing experiences; and work as a nurse practitioner at the SOS clinic in Seeley Lake.
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Not Transcribed (may include a typed summary):
Alice Dettwiler interview, 1990 April 5. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1320). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes. 19-page summary. Alice Dettwiler discusses her early life and health care in Kalispell, Montana; her education, training, and nursing work in Minnesota; her return to Montana in 1954; work as an office nurse in the Noxon, Montana, clinic from 1962 to 1980; emergency medical transportation in Western Sanders County; work as a school nurse for Noxon High School; and nursing in rural areas.
Anita Jopling interview, 1990 April 5. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1322). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes. 18-page summary. Anita Jopling (b. 1913) discusses her experiences as a nursing student at St. Mary’s Hospital in Walla Walla, Washington, during the early 1930s; work as a nurse at the Veterans Hospital in Walla Walla with veterans of World War I; relocation to Trout Creek, Montana, in 1948; her work as public health nurse for Sanders County from 1963 to 1973; the general health care situation in Sanders County; and nursing and health care in very rural areas.
Anna Pearl Sherrick interview, 1989 December 6. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1308). Montana Historical Society Archives. 1 audio tape (1 hr.) 8-page summary. Topics include her childhood and education in Illinois; her teaching position at Deaconess Hospital in Great Falls; the Montana State University School of Nursing in Bozeman; the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II; changes in training; and her thoughts about modern medical care.
Dolly Browder interview, 1990 September 28. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1351). Montana Historical Society Archives. 3 audio tapes (3 hr.) Topics include her family’s attitudes on health care; the distance to the nearest medical facility; early obstetrics; influences on her choice to become a midwife; rural medical care; emergency medical care; and legalities associated with midwifery.
Raymond Read and Angeline Read interview, 1990 September 27. Medicine, Healthcare, and Nursing in Montana (OH 1341). Montana Historical Society Archives. 2 audio tapes (1 hr., 45 min.) 11-page summary. Topics include his early life in North Dakota; his veterinary training at Iowa State University; his veterinary practice at Ronan from 1941 to 1986; the National Bison Range at Moiese; his experiences as the personal veterinarian to the white buffalo “Big Medicine”; brucellosis vaccinations; his service on the Montana State Board of Veterinarians; her experiences as office manager and bookkeeper for her husband’s veterinary practice; the effects of government regulations and new technologies on veterinary medicine.