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EXPLORING
KENTUCKY - January 2004 by Katherine Tandy Brown House Call
Yet thanks to the efforts of Mary Breckinridge, founder of the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS), accessible healthcare is now a reality for the mountain population. During the early part of the 20th century, Breckinridge – the granddaughter of U.S. President Buchanan’s vice-president and the daughter of an Arkansas congressman – traveled the U.S. as spokesperson for the National Children’s Bureau. Surveying the Appalachian area by horseback in 1918, she was concerned by the lack of good obstetrical care. Having observed the superiority of midwives in nursing while in England with the American Red Cross, she decided at age 43 to return there to study and become certified in midwifery. In 1925, she returned to the U.S. and settled in Kentucky, drawn by the beauty of the country and the “integrity and decency of the mountain people.” She was motivated by the idea that if a good healthcare system could be established for people in a remote area, it could be done anywhere. And so, the Frontier Nursing Service was born. The nursing teams wore uniforms with riding breeches and boots, traveled in pairs, and always took a dog along to deal with wild pigs or snakes. In the winter, they often had to break ice on the river to get across to a patient. At a time when money was scarce, complete prenatal care, delivery and visits to a cabin for 10 days cost five dollars. If a family couldn’t pay, FNS received work, fresh eggs or even a puppy for barter. While recruiting British nurses to Kentucky and sending American nurses to study midwifery in England, Breckinridge and two nurses opened a two-bed clinic – which soon became a 12-bed hospital. Built by the men of Leslie County, who received free family healthcare in exchange, the log house – known as the Big House – initially served as both the clinic and as living quarters for Breckinridge. Superb at fundraising and at people connections, Breckinridge arranged for the village mail to be delivered to her home, so she could get to know and develop the trust of the locals. As word spread about the success of FNS in drastically lowering the area’s infant mortality rate, curious fans and critics began flocking to the small village of Wendover – near Hyden – to see what Breckinridge and her nurses were doing. “The government would send us visitors from all over the world from areas that were trying to combat the same conditions we had – Saudi Arabia, South America, India,” recalls Dr. Mary Fox, a former public health physician and assistant medical director of FNS. “I’d show them our public health department and how it operated.” In 1952 Mary was honored as Kentucky Press Association Woman of the Year. Her original FNS uniform and saddlebags are currently on display at the Smithsonian. Though nurses still make house calls, FNS today has evolved into a parent holding company operating five rural healthcare clinics in Clay and Leslie counties, all staffed with family nurse-practitioners and nurse-midwives that provide complete prenatal, postnatal and family health care. The Hayden Clinic is located inside the Mary Breckinridge Hospital; the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing (FSMFN) has grown into the largest mid-wifery program in the country. Visitors to the area can immerse themselves in history with a stay at Breckinridge’s former home, now known as the Bed & Breakfast Inn at Wendover and is considered a National Historic Landmark. Guests can linger in front of its massive fireplace, peruse the library or simply gaze at the river after a full country breakfast. (Other meals are available with advance notice.) Though small, the Wendover gift shop, housed in the refurbished barn, is a treasure trove of FNS info. Prints of old photos include a striking pose of Breckinridge in uniform and a well-known shot of a baby in a saddlebag, which serves as “evidence” of where babies came from for the mountain children who asked. (They were told that the nurses brought them in saddlebags.) Day lilies and vibrant perennials light a riverside meditation garden and mountain magnolias sport huge creamy June blossoms on the Wendover grounds, part of the thick greenery that makes the guest rooms like those of a tree house. Peek into the tiny stone St. Christopher’s Chapel, which Breckinridge had built, and admire its handcrafted ironwork doors and cross and striking15th-century mosaic window centerpiece. For information on tours and the B&B, call (606) 672-2317.
Katherine Tandy
Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report. |
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Copyright 1996-2004, by Kentucky Business Online. All rights reserved. Editorial content
is copyright 2004, Lane Communications Group The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
As late as the 1920s, Leslie County and the surrounding Kentucky mountain areas posted the highest infant mortality rate in the nation. With no electricity or phone service and few roads, accident, illness or childbirth meant herbs and home remedies or a two-day trek – at the least – to the nearest hospital.