l
it QUARTERLY BULLETIN 3
  A MOT I-IER’S VISIT TO FNS
l\/ERS. GORDON MILLER
A As our car came closer and closer to the Frontier Nursing
5 Service Outpost where our daughter, Mollie, was stationed, we
{ felt we were entering another country and era. We were soon to
f learn that the section of Kentucky which is located in the Appa-
. lachian Mountains has a culture, a society, and a language all
  1ltS OW11.
Y Driving slowly enough to take in the beauty of Kentucky’s
Y hills in early summer, we noted washing machines on front
‘ porches and elderly folks sitting as if watching the world go by.
L Clothes hung on lines or on wire fences., Old cars, long abandoned,
were in strange places, like a river bed, or perhaps near the front
A door where they had been left after their last feeble chug. Every
yard had at least one dog to greet us as we passed. By the
scattered lumps of coal along the roads we knew mining was one
j of the industries of this part of Kentucky.
Suddenly, two jeeps, one green and one yellow, plainly labeled
; I "FNS", seemed to surround us. Our daughter in the yellow jeep
  waved us on as she took the lead in directing us to her outpost.
xy Carolyn, her co-worker, continued on her way to call on her
X patients up the nearby creek.
` I In just a few minutes we came to a mail box bearing those
  same familiar letters--FNS—and Mollie led us through the green
 r gate and up a steep hill to a white house, shaded by lovely tall
 I oaks. How wrong I had been all these years in trying to imagine
¢  what an outpost looked like! We soon learned that the Belle
1 Barrett Hughitt Memorial Nursing Center at Brutus was indeed
  a haven for the weary in more ways than one.
· Mollie proudly introduced us to the Kentucky woman who
helped take care of the center, then showed us their clinic, the
· sitting room with its cozy fireplace, the screened-in porch, and
 g our own guest room. We even met Star, the cow!
  While Mollie was busy with her clinic, I settled down to read
 ' Yesterdays People, a recent book about Appalachia, and soon
 l found myself comparing the author’s conclusions with my own
  observations at the clinics.
 .
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