xt7v416t038p https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7v416t038p/data/mets.xml The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. 1950 bulletins  English The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Frontier Nursing Service Quarterly Bulletins The Quarterly Bulletin of The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc., Vol. 25, No. 4, Spring 1950 text The Quarterly Bulletin of The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc., Vol. 25, No. 4, Spring 1950 1950 2014 true xt7v416t038p section xt7v416t038p   ’·‘ ‘ "  4"*··*·—··——— .__-.-...__~,7__._,_.___
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· V ` Margaret Voorhies Haggin Quarters for N
V urses
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Taken from the back
A corner of Hydcn Hospital at r`
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Photograph by Carroll Luhr

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MAIL TIME AT WENDOVER
Courier, Polly Thayer of Philadelphia
This photograph, and the one of the Hyden Hosigtal buildings
on inside back cover, were taken by Nancy ammann
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THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN af FRONTIER NURSING SERVICE, Inc. l
Published Quarterly by the Frontier Nursing Service, Lexington, Ky.  
Subscription Price $1.00 Per Year > *
 
VOLUME 25 SPRING, 1950 NUMBER 4 ·  
» in
"Entered as second class matter June 30, 1926, at the Post Office at Lexington, Ky.. 1
under Act of March 3, 1879."  .;¢
Copyright, 1950, Frontier Nursing Service, Inc.  qi
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 INDEX
lvl
  ARTICLE AUTHOR PAGE
A Piscnatorial Episode Gwendolen Jelleyman 40
A Pure Pet Reva Rubin 19
As You Go Through Life (Verse) 2
Beyond the Mountains 47
‘·¤ Congress in New York Helen E. Browne 55
 V l Field Notes 58
:_ Hurrah for Eyeglasses Mary Ann Quarles 21
g Old Courier News 23
Old Staff News 43
On Turning Oneself Inside Out V
(A Book Review) 33
Paraphrase Georgiana Sibley 45
The Frontier Nursing Service
` Revisited Elizabeth Van Meter Hutchinson 38
Urgent Needs 15
7   We Are Our Own Contractors Agnes Lewis 3
~ ? (Verse and Cartoons) Rose Evans 32
BRIEF BITS
A Person of Beenin (Verse) 29
` All Things New-Born (Verse) Leslie S. Clark 46
Cuckoo Song 13th Century 46
? Epitaph on a Poacher The Countryman 29
j` = Form Telegrams 18
    Just Jokes~—Pests 39
    Our Mail Bag 14
{ Sir Oliver Lodge Light 67
  Spirits of Bread and Water A Sheaf of Memories 31
’ To Marvin (Verse) Ivallean Caudill 20
°   True Tales 22
  White Elephant 54
 EJ Who Says Rabbits Don’t Lay Eggs
  (Illus.) 30
* l; .

 AS YOU GO THROUGH LIFE  
Don"r look lor Jrhe {laws as you go lhrough lile; {ie
And even when you lind Jrhem.  
l+ is wise and kind +o be somewhar blind,  
And looklor +he vir’rue behind ‘rhem;  
For ’rhe cloudiesi nigh+ has a +in+ ol lighi I
Somewhere in iis shadows hiding:  
‘ I+ is be+’rer by lar lo look lor a siar,  
Than +he spols on ihe sun abiding.  
The world will never ad]us’r iisell  
To suil your whims +o ’rhe lelier;  
Some lhings go wrong your whole like long.  
And ’rhe sooner you know i’r Jrhe be++er. i
V ` -coumbuu-ed, source unknown E
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 1
i FRONTIER NURSING SERVICE z
  WE ARE OUR OWN CONTRACTORS
I by
  AGNES LEWIS, B.A.
  Executive Secretary of the Frontier Nursing Service
g THE A. B. C. OF IT
Yr; The hospital staff have been in The Margaret Voorhies
» 1 Haggin Quarters for Nurses for over a month now; but we still
( can’t believe that this lovely, comfortable and long-wished-for
 j building is real and not just the dream house we have talked
2 about for over twenty years.
  When I iirst came to the Frontier Nursing Service—twenty
years ago this coming August—Mrs. Breckinridge told me that
the nurses were temporarily living in part of one wing of the .
Q Hospital but in time we would have a house for them. I thought,
Q "How nice." If at that time she had told me that I would so
  much as have to look at blueprints or order a nail I would have
  said firmly, "I can’t," and I am afraid I might even have said,
{ "I won’t." But that was twenty years ago. It didn’t take me
{ many months to realize a pattern was laid in the F.N.S., that
j all things had a place in this pattern, and all people-the staff,
  our patients, the local citizens, friends beyond the mountains,
  even our guests—each had his small or great bit to do in the
whole scheme of things. This fact I faced along with the grim
¤ truth that I was a round peg in a square hole--my hope was
, that it would not always be so!
The first time Mrs. Breckinridge handed me a pencil draw-
} ing of a house we were to build—the old Garden House here at
j Wendover—and began explaining to me what should be done
i in her absence—-all so simple to her———I turned white, cold per-
spiration broke out on my forehead (mercifully she did not
notice it) and I was speechless. She assumed that I was intelli-
I gent and that I was "taking in" her instructions. In so far as
‘} I was concerned, she spoke a language totally unfamiliar to me.
*3 Fortunately, Rosalie Edmondson, who was here at the time, did
g have a working knowledge of construction, building materials, _
  et cetera; and what was more important, she had a yen for
§ building a house. I quickly suggested that Rosalie take over
1
1

 :1 
4 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN {
this project——fascinating to her but appalling to me. She did. Qt
I was free!  
Soon I was to learn that my saying that I did not have a  
mechancal mind or a visual mind or a mathematical mind saved ii-;
me not a bit from rubbing the circumference of my round peg i
against the corners of my square hole. It just didn’t work that  
way in the F.N.S. One did what needed doing, did it willingly, i
and if possible, cheerfully. If one put her best into it, fate gi
would stand by and somehow the result would not be too bad. _
Maintenance and construction did come under my department  
and, if I stayed here, I had to live with two-by-fours, number 5  
sixteen common nails, sleepers, joists, sills, and the like.  
The first few years we kept to repairs mostly. Then one day  
in 1939 Mrs. Breckinridge began lining up the building of a new Z
barn——Aunt Hattie’s Barn——at Hyden. On that I learned the first i Q:
“ letters of the alphabet in building. In rapid succession, as we built  
Joy House and Midwives Quarters, I learned a few more letters,  y
The war stopped all construction, until the Garden House fire.  
There was no alternative. War or no war we had to rebuild  Q
early in 1942. The new office building had to be much larger  
than the old Garden House, and again I felt most inadequate.  ,:1
But, we were already running on a depleted nursing and secre-  i
tarial staff and I couldn’t desert my post. I was comforted by  `
the thought that this would probably be our last building until  
we started the nurses’ quarters; and when that was built it  xi
would be so large that we would have to have a contractor.  
Ignorance is indeed bliss!  il
Somehow, with the help of priorities (because we are a char-  
ity) and the help of many kind people, the new Garden House  
was completed. Mrs. Breckinridge had kept her reason and her r` 
sense of humor; and at last I felt I was familiar with the A. B.  
C.’s in the language of carpenters, stonemasons, plumbers, elec-  
tricians and the like. I relaxed, and felt grateful for Mrs. Breck-   _
inridge’s tolerance and patience with my limited abilities. · 
"THEY’RE OFF"  
Then, last winter a year ago, the wonderful news that work y
was to start on the Haggin Quarters for Nurses at once, sent ‘ I
my spirits to the heights one minute, and to the depths of de-  I
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  Fnomrrimn NURSING smzvxcm 5
  spondency the next. I now knew that no contractor would take
’?_ on a building contract at Hyden, with all of the building hazards
El that make it a gamble, unless he took it at a price that would
gl be prohibitive for us. Mrs. Breckinridge had learned this years
  ago. I also knew better than ever before that one never learns
i enough about building a house. One keeps an eagle eye out for
P _ the things one knows from sad experience may happen; but one
`l cannot anticipate things which never have happened before!
` ` As we began to line things up for Haggin Quarters, we had
j a brain wave. Mr. Chris G. Queen, chief engineer at the Ford
l Motor Company headquarters on Red Bird River, and a trustee,
  had designed the retaining wall behind the new Garden House
  and supervised the construction of it. Mrs. Breckinridge asked
  him to make a survey of the site for our new building to deter- _
  mine how much dirt and rock had to be excavated, whether or
  not there was solid rock on which to build foundations, and all
  that sort of data. To our immense relief, he not only agreed
  to do this but offered to serve as our consulting engineer for the
  entire building. A heavy load rolled off our shoulders. We were
 l also grateful to the Combs Lumber Company at Lexington for
  again letting their architect, Mr. Clarence Smith, draw up plans
 ,~ for blueprints, and make as many trips to Hyden as were neces-
 { sary for conferences. Furthermore, Mr. Oscar Bowling and his
 fl` crew of carpenters had given up work elsewhere to be ready to
  start on our new building as soon as the iinal plans were ready.
  Mrs. Breckinridge had built the hospital nearly twenty-five
  years ago under circumstances which, to anyone else would
ll  have been insurmountable. For her, all of our buildings since
  then had been child’s play in comparison. She knew every pit-
»_;  fall of building in the mountains. Mr. Queen was an engineer,
Isl  long experienced in the kind of problems with which we would
Y  ` have to grapple. Mr. Smith was a veteran in designing our
i` buildings. Mr. Bowling was a master builder, and so recognized
  here in the mountains and by construction authorities in Lex-
` J ington and Louisville. With these four in command, a well-
< constructed building was assured. Being in on their conferences
I Ii  and having a very minor part in Haggin Quarters was going
 I · to be fun.
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 l
6 THE QUARTERLY BU1..Lm·1N  
WORK AND WOE f
The excavation was the first step. Mr. Queen knew a re-  ‘
liable man with a dump truck, a high loader——in my language ,.
it would be a tractor with a small shovel attached-and an air L
compressor. This light equipment was just what we needed as  1 ·
there was not much space for heavy equipment to operate on  
the Hospital hill. What was incredible to us was the fact that  _
Mr. J olmson’s charges were reasonable and he could do the work, °
starting any time we were ready for him. He and Mr. Queen  
looked the site over, estimated the yardage of dirt and rock to  X
be removed. Mr. Johnson thought the excavation would take {
about three days—we allowed one week. We were off to a good  
start! A
Then, those unexpected things began to happen. A dump C
truck went over the precipice. No one was hurt, but the truck
had to be repaired. Another truck caught on fire. The "high
loader" reared up too high in the air, toppled over, threw Mr.
Johnson out, and broke his arm. All of this happened in a
period of twenty-four hours. The rains set in—wet weather J
springs bubbled out of the hillside and up from the ground. It
was a wet, muddy, slippery mess. Everything was slowed down. »
In this dark horizon we looked for a silver lining and found one. _
We now knew where the wet weather springs were and could i
more intelligently lay drain tile to control them. The excavation
was completed on May 11, 1949. It had taken three weeks, in-
stead of three days! We began to doubt our completing the
building in six months. Our woes had just began.
Neighbors had kindly offered to give us the stone for Hag- `
gin Quarters. There was beautiful rock in the same quarry
from which the stone for the Hospital had been given. What
could be nicer than getting it there, not more than half a mile
from the Hospital! The head stonemason went to look at it. .
It was a lovely idea but under his contract (payment on a yard- l
age basis) he could not afford to haul the stone from that
quarry. When the Hospital was built it had been quite a differ- .
ent matter. All of the stone was hauled then by strong mules  
and sleds. We were geared to that sort of thing. Now it was .
different. A truck couldn’t get to the quarry without a road  
being cut, and that was too expensive for the stonemason. T A
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  FRONTIER NURSING smnvxcm 7
T Other friends offered stone but it was either not to the stone-
J mason’s liking or it was inaccessible. With stone every place
` around us it was ironical that we ended up by hauling it from
[ an adjoining county—at the stonemas0n’s expense, not ours.
 1. We thought of how often friends had said to us, "How nice
 . to have stone right at your door for building!"
  We could get cement cheaper in carload lots. We wrote the
° Portland Cement Company in Louisville and asked if we could
J buy direct from them and have freight cars loaded at their
  doors. They said that the cement would have to be shipped
{ through their nearest dealer, but here was a check to help out.
  We wrote the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company to
V, know if they would give us a 50% rebate in freight on carload
C lots of cement, as they had done on the cement for the Hospital _
when it was built. The president himself wrote back to say
that they had had to discontinue this service to charities, but
here was a check to make it up to us. All of that was a
huge help.
J By the end of May we were ready to lay the foundations.
A concrete footing had to be poured. Mr. E. K. Harris of the
" Ritter Lumber Company gave us the thousand feet of lumber we
·. needed for the forms. Mr. W. E. Davis of the Old King Mining
Company gave us all of the old mine rails we needed as reinforc-
ing steel. These gifts were godsends. We began to see real
progress.
The first load of building materials from the Combs Lumber
· Company was brought from Lexington by Walter Begley on
June lirst. We had no qualms about the carpentry work. Mr.
Bowling and his men are real craftsmen. We knew they would
do their work well and rapidly; and with deep satisfaction.
. By the middle of August the stonemasons had the walls
l of the building completed almost to the top of the second story.
The carpenters were right behind them with the inside partition
r walls. We began to push specifications and contracts for wiring
{ the house, the painting, plumbing, heating, et cetera. Every-
. thing was clicking. After all, we would be in the new house by
  Christmas. Again we revelled in this comfortable optimism.
T A And then ————
l

 8 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN  
CRISIS AND CRASH  2
August eleventh, our bubble burst. Over the week-end the A i
stonemason who had our contract was mixed up in a shooting l
affray. At tea Sunday afternoon someone casually remarked  
that two men had been killed but no one knew who was involved. __ 
On Monday morning a skeleton crew of stonemasons were  
working—their guns by their sides. The carpenters, all unarmed,  
worked furiously and tensely. The faster they worked the more  
they "studied." Would the relatives of the victims try "to get" ~
the brothers of the head stonemason who had already been .·i
taken to an adjoining county for safe keeping? If they did, gl
the heavily wooded mountain above the building would make a  
perfect ambush. How would they be able to sort out the stone-  .
masons from the carpenters when they started shooting? Four j
A o’clock-quitting time-—brought great relief. A good night’s  A
sleep brought a firm decision: something had to be settled  
before they resumed work. Before our breakfast on Tuesday  ,
morning, Mr. Bowling and his son, Elmer, were outside my office. .
We had a crisis and Mrs. Breckinridge was not here. In any i
case, this was a matter for men and not women. I called Mr.
Queen. He and Mr. Bowling decided to stop all work for a day Y
or two until they could see the stonemason and his brothers and ip
work out our next move. There were many conferences. The ¥
stonemason said that he had never failed to meet a contract I
and he didn’t "aim to fail us." He asked his brothers to com-  ·
plete the stone work on his contract; and by the end of the ?
week the crisis was over and work was resumed.  I
Soon the roof was on. The plumbing and heating and wir-  ·
ing were being roughed-in. The building assumed the appear- A
ance of a beehive. Everybody was in everybody’s way, or so it  I
seemed to me. The carpenters were putting up the inside walls, = 
At last the blueprints began to make sense. There were almost p
hourly adjustments to make and everyone took them in his _,l
stride with a sense of humor and a courtesy that I shall never 7 °
forget. Once more we were making progress. We would be in ,`
soon after Christmas!  
December thirteenth (and not a Friday either!) brought  
us down to earth again with a bang. Heavy rains for days had  ,
left the hillsides soaked, with springs pouring from every direc- ;

   FRoN·1·1E1z NURSING smzvicm 9
 ; tion. A huge boulder on the mountain above our new building
s   » was loosed from its bed and down it came in the middle of the ’
  night, with mud and muck, right against the back wall of our
l building. This was the end! That was my iirst reaction when,
  before seven o’clock in the morning, the telephone woke me and
  Mr. Bowling told me the bad news. After a cup of strong coffee,
Q  things didn’t look quite so grim. The men in rubber boots, with
2 shovels and picks, removed the débris in wheelbarrows to a
) corner of the building. The Conley Morgan Coal Company let
A one of their drivers park a dump truck as close to the building
ll as possible, and the rock and mud were emptied into it. Each
l time the truck was loaded, the driver left his post at the Conley
 _ Morgan mine and came to carry off and dump the contents of the
· truck, parked it again, and went back to the mine. This was
it done as a courtesy and at no charge whatever to the Frontier
 i Nursing Service. The cost of the truck and driver on full pay
 1 while we loaded the truck by hand would have been prohibitive
A for us.
"SEPTIC" AND SANITARY
  Before plans were drawn up for the building, Mrs. Breck-
 , inridge personally talked with the State Sanitary Engineer in
` regard to the sewage system and he gave her the specifications
i for it. She saw to it that those specifications were met at every
‘,  point. This was not easy. A specified number of feet of drain
  tile had to be laid; and the only conceivable place to lay it was
. under the paddock in front of the barn. By moving the hitching
 f rails from one side of the paddock to the other, the horses would
 , not stand over the network of tile; and by moving a calf shed
 A to one side, there was room for the septic tank. But, there was
1  a wet weather spring right where it had to be placed; as fast
; as the men shoveled out dirt, the water came in. They put on
, ; rubber boots and worked out a system: with the garden hose
 ` one man siphoned out water, another dipped, and a third shov-
 .~ eled. A fourth worked at diverting the spring so that it could
  be caught in tile and turned into a culvert. What do people in
  a city have to worry about when the city takes care of their
 » sewage problems? We cannot help but wonder!
  The main construction of the building was now nearly fin-

 10 Tm: QUARTERLY BULLETIN  .
ished. As the electricians, two able men from the Allen-Harper  
Electrical Engineering Corporation in Lexington, moved out,  I
the painters moved in. Plumbers from our old friends—the ?
Harlan Plumbing and Heating Company-—were setting fixtures.  
The tubs were uncrated and our hearts sank. The factory could  ~
not furnish "c1osed end" tubs for another six to eight weeks `, 
and they had substituted "open end" tubs. These were designed ‘
for efficiency apartments where one end of the tub was set° ,»
fiush with one wall and the other end iiush against the opposite ·
wall. We could set one unfinished end against the wall where  
the pipes were connected; but what could we do with the other ‘ {
unfinished end? Our bathrooms were long and narrow because l
they had to be that way! The ends of those bathtubs assumed ll 
gigantic proportions. We could send the tubs back and wait  
for the factory to make and ship the right ones. But would i
they be delivered in eight weeks or even in ten weeks? The ·
delay would hold up all of the work and postpone our getting  
into the building. We could have the unfinished ends closed `
with pieces of plywood, paint them white and forget it! Our
feminine souls yearned to wait for the tubs with the properly
finished ends; our common sense told us to accept the "open .
end" tubs and forget them. Few outsiders would notice the ends!
This we finally did.
FURNITURE FITS '
With the building nearly ready, it was time to order the ‘
furnishings. These were to be simple. The bedrooms, like all  .
in the F.N.S., would each have a metal bed-—comfortable mat- J 
tress and springs but no head boards (they are cheaper and  -i
all that matters is that the bed be comfortable) —-an unpainted
- chest of drawers with a mirror above it; a combination desk-
table; a straight chair; a comfortable boudoir chair; pin-up
lamps; gooseneck lamp for the desk; a bedside rug; and dotted . 
Swiss curtains. Friends were furnishing these rooms, some as
memorials, and a small plaque was to be mounted above the *‘ 
door showing in whose name each was furnished. We selected y
bedroom items from one of the mail order houses which, because  
we are a charity, gives us a discount. The list was submitted to
the nurses for final approval. My idea of a comfortable boudoir

  J FRoN·r1ER NURSING smnvicm 11
  chair was at the opposite pole from their idea. But the chairs
 1 · they wanted cost exactly the same price; so we ordered their
  platform rockers!
 E We almost reached our Waterloo when it came to furnishing
s  the lounge. This was to be a memorial to our Bucket. She
 ° really cared about the comfort of the nurses in their off-duty
A hours-—she thought nothing of her own comfort during any
i hours. Her old friends were furnishing this lounge and we
i, wanted it to be bright and cheerful, comfortable, attractive and
L informal. It was to be a room to be lived in every day. In the
{ center of this great room, set between double windows looking
I far off over the mountains, is a huge stone fireplace with a hand-
 r hewn buckeye mantel. The walls were pale green, the wood-
1 work walnut. One side of the room was filled with bookcases
‘ finished like the woodwork. Mr. Bowling made a large library
L table out of a black walnut tree cut down in our pasture when
= the Power Company cleared the right of way for their lines
while electrifying Wendover. This was a "must" in Bucket’s
‘ room. Because of the heavy outside-to-inside traffic in to our
buildings, in all kinds of weather, we uniformly throughout the
` Service use in the living rooms Olson rugs in Early American
patterns. These show traffic marks much less than the solid
color rugs; and it is a marvelous way to use up our old rugs
, and all woolen scraps that we can save. We had to send the
material for our new rug for the lounge to the factory early in
· the fall to insure that the rug would be on hand when we were
 t, ready for it. At that time there were only three Early American
.·  patterns listed as available. We had to make our selection. We
 .` chose a reddish brown background with an indefinite pattern.
With the walls, the woodwork, the table and the rug as fixed
factors, we settled down to complete the décor of this room. We
. could almost hear Bucket chuckle over our dilemma! We
.  settled the question of the heavier furniture—we would have
one large sofa, two small ones, and two large chairs. All were
V‘  to come covered in domestic and we would have two sets of
_ washable slip covers made for them. The maddening thing
  was the selection of draperies and slip covers for that many
I items of furniture in one room: to harmonize with one another,
the walls and the rug! It wasn’t. as though we could go down

 12 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN l
town and browse through drapery departments, find something F
we thought would be suitable, take it to the lounge and see what VV, 
the effect was, go back and find something else and, finally,  ,
arrive at what was wanted.  
By this time we knew we could not order for this room  
by mail. Mac and I went down to Lexington and, with Mrs.  
,Waring Wilson’s help, selected the furniture, the lamps, and  L
odds and ends of things that we had not found in the catalogues. {J
Then we put our minds completely on the remaining two items-   ,
draperies and slip covers. The longer we looked and the more in
weary we became, the more impossible our problem seemed. *
Finally we collected a set of samples for the slip covers and for I
the draperies and came home. The next afternoon a few of us _'
took the samples to the lounge and tried to visualize our room. Y
The effect of the sample of material for the draperies was, to  »A
put it mildly, startling! So startling, in fact, that everyone `_ 
began to have very definite and constructive ideas of what the p
room needed and that meant real progress. Furthermore, Mrs.
Waring Wilson in Lexington had insisted that she would be glad  i
to shop around and find other samples for us if the ones we J
brought home would not do. We accepted her generous offer. di
She found the perfect material for the draperies-—-a gold back- p
ground with a very small floral design in warm colors which  ‘
blended well with everything in the room.  F
The dining room table, moved over from the old staff dining
room in the Hospital, was of solid black walnut, made by Mr. ·,
Bowling some years ago. We had our hearts set on his making i
two sol