Old Missoula

“Though little remembered today, Robert Park Mills (1920–1986) played a quiet but prominent part in shaping science fiction and fantasy from the 1950s through the ’80s. He was no flamboyant character, but as an editor and, especially, as a literary agent, Mills put into print some of the best-known works of the era.”

HISTORY of the Robert Mills Literary Agency

Robert Park Mills was born in 1920 in Missoula, Montana, to William P. Mills and Alice Wicklund. Mills received his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1942. He served in World War II, rising to the rank of first lieutenant. Mills was married twice, to Anne Hale in 1945, and later to Patricia Bain. He and Patricia had two children, Frederic and Alison. In 1949, Mills served as managing editor of Mercury Press’ “The Magazine of Fantasy”. He also served as the managing editor to “Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine” from 1948–1959. Mills became the sole editor of what became “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” in 1954. In 1959, Mills founded the Robert Mills Literary Agency. As a full time literary agent, Mills represented a wide variety of science fiction writers. In 1984, Robert Mills retired and sold the agency to Richard Curtis Associates. Richard Curtis, president of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., is both a literary agent and author. Robert Park Mills died of a coronary at age 65 in 1986.

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/remembering-robert-p-mills/

 

Rescue Mission in the South Fork Primitive Area

 

Researched by Jack Demmons

 

During Wed. and Thurs., Sept. 17 & 18, 1941, there was high drama in the South Fork Primitive Area of Montana. (That area is now part of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area.) Two Travel Airs of the Johnson Flying Service, based out of Missoula, were standing by at Big Prairie Ranger Station’s landing strip. A rescue mission was in progress.

 

A call had been received in Missoula on the 17^th, stating that a woman in a hunting party had been shot by another hunter – from a different party. (The call erroneously stated that the victim was at the ranger station. She was actually about 20 miles away.) Veteran pilot Bob Johnson took off from Missoula’s Hale Field at 6:00 P.M. with Dr. Leo P Martin and nurse Cathryn Ward. (The Big Prairie strip was about 75 miles northeast of Missoula.) Dr. Martin had trained at Missoula under Frank Derry and had also taken some training in parachuting at Moose Creek in the Nez Perce National Forest. He was not a smokejumper, but had taken parachute training on his own so as to be jump-qualified for rescue operations. (Medical journals in the United States referred to him as the only “Jump Doctor” in the nation at that time.) He was a native of Coram, Montana.

 

Upon landing, they found that the injured woman, Barbara Streit of Missoula, had been shot about 20 miles from the ranger station, in the Young’s Creek region. She had been shot at a distance of 50 yards by a 180 grain soft-nosed, hollow point bullet, fired from a 30.06 rifle. The bullet had gone through both knees. Miss Streit had been preparing to enter Montana University upon her return from the hunting trip. She would have been a senior. The report received at the station said she was in critical condition, suffering from loss of blood and was in shock, and that the hunting group was moving her down the trail. Dr. Martin, nurse Ward, and several employees of the ranger station took off in the darkness to try and meet them.

 

In the meantime, Bob Johnson contacted Hale Field and stated that smokejumpers were needed since the injured person was a long distance from the ranger station. A 60 mile round trip had to be taken to Nine Mile west of Missoula and back in order to secure parachutes and jump gear. Very early in the morning on the 18^th Dick Johnson was airborne in another Travel Air, along with Barbara Streit’s father, Norman C. Streit, and smokejumpers Karl Nussbacher, Roy Mattson, Bill Musgrove, and Wag Dodge. It was raining in the South Fork area and conditions were such that it was impossible to drop the jumpers. They landed at Big Prairie and shortly headed up the trail also.

 

In the Young’s Creek area members of her hunting party had slowed the loss of blood and applied splints to both legs. Miss Streit was placed on the rump of one of Tamarack Lodge’s pack horses – Old Sylvia. With a man on either side steadying her – with legs held straight out in front – they started down the long trail. Dr. Martin and others in his group met them 18 miles from the Big Prairie station. Dr. Martin administered 1^st aid and once again Miss Streit and the rescuers headed to the northwest. They had to stop at the Hahn Creek
Guard Station since Barbara Streit had taken a turn for the worse. Dr. Martin gave her what was called in those days a “canned-blood transfusion.” This was at 3:30 A.M. during the morning of the 18^th. At 7:30 A.M. the group started out again. The going was slow along the slippery trail, and they had to cross the rain-swollen South Fork River. Dr. Martin said later that Miss Streit never once uttered a single cry.

 

The 4 smokejumpers and Norman Streit came across the party 7 miles from Big Prairie and gave assistance. Then, 3 miles from the airstrip they met a Forest Service mule-drawn, rubber-tired cart, to which she was transferred. Arriving at Big Prairie Barbara Streit was quickly placed in Bob Johnson’s Travel Air. The nurse and her father also went along. The smokejumpers boarded Dick Johnson’s ship and both groups took off in the face of a cross-wind, with Dick’s ship acting as escort along the route to Missoula. At Hale Field she was taken in an ambulance to a local hospital where doctors removed about 200 pieces of bullet fragments from both knees. She recovered and lives in Missoula today.

 

The Great Falls Tribune on the 19^th commented: “The saga of a fearless girl, an intrepid doctor, dauntless airmen, and sweating rescue workers ended at municipal airport this afternoon . . . Thus ended a 95 mile trip (20 by trail and 75 by air) . . .”

 

Among the jumpers, Wag Dodge survived the Mann Gulch Fire of 1949, and passed away in 1955. We do not know the whereabouts of Karl “Bear Wrestler” Nussbacher (He later changed his name to Glades.), Roy Mattson or Bill Musgrove. Dr. Martin joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 and became head flight surgeon for the base at Walla Walla, Washington. He was a captain and taking flight instructions. He and his instructor pilot were shooting practice landings. Dr. Martin’s wife – along with her parents – was watching. Suddenly the cabin trainer hit a power line, exploded, and crashed in flames. Both pilots died. Dr. Leo Martin was later buried at Missoula. Dick Johnson died in March 1945 in the crash of the Johnson Flying Service Travel Air he was piloting south of Jackson, Wyoming while taking part in a game survey. Bob Johnson passed away in December 1980.

 

It has now been 53 years since that rescue out of Big Prairie. The Young’s Creek area is still a primitive region and the Big Prairie airstrip has been closed for a long time to civilian aviation. The roar of Travel Air engines over the South Fork Primitive Area has been stilled forever.

 

The above article appeared in the National Smokejumper Association newsletter October, 1994.

Barbara Streit Koessler died at the age of 90 in 2011. See her obituary below:

 

 

MISSOULA – Barbara Koessler, an enthusiastic and lifelong supporter of the Missoula community, died on Monday, Nov. 14, 2011, at her home, having celebrated her 90th birthday earlier this year.

Barbara was a Montana woman to her core. She was born in Missoula on May 5, 1921, attended Roosevelt Grade School, Missoula County High School and the University of Montana, as had both her parents and her two brothers. Her childhood encompassed school months in town, and summers at the family cabin, still standing today, which was built by her father and grandfather at Lake Inez. Following her B.A. (1942), Barbara worked in New York for a year, concurrently completing an M.S. from the NYU School of Retailing. She later earned an M.A. from Montana.

Barbara once summed up herself as “devoted to my family,”  as she was; that, and much more. The oft-told story of her hunting accident and ensuing rescue in the South Fork Wilderness at age 20, a chapter in the early history of both the Forest Service and air service in western Montana, characterized Barbara throughout her life: love of the outdoors; sense of adventure; sports woman; unflagging spirit; and optimism, regardless of the physical or mental challenge; plus ever-present humor (“Well, it did hurt my pride to be mistaken for an elk”).

Barbara loved Missoula and settled permanently here in 1954, when she married Horace “Shorty” Koessler. She played a leading role in the foundation of the Missoula Symphony, which she supported throughout her life, and was active in numerous fund raising activities. A staunch Grizzly fan and supporter of the University, Barbara served on the University of Montana Foundation and President’s Advisory Council, and was an avid Grizzly Rider. She was a Missoula Art Associate and an active participant in the P.E.O.s and “As You Like It” throughout her life. Her eclectic range of interests resulted in her becoming a Life Master duplicate bridge player, a licensed pilot, an accomplished rider, a certified scuba diver, a tremendous cook, and sky diving at the age of 70 (first and only time, thank goodness). She served as a pragmatic and supportive counselor at Sentinel High School for several years, and following the death of her husband in l987, built and ran for 10 years The Travel Bug Agency.

Barbara was the most adaptable person most of us will ever know. She was equally at home cooking over a smoky campfire in the wilderness, or serving as a charming and elegant hostess at a formal fundraising cultural event, with a unique ability to move effortlessly between the two worlds, and add her charm and wit to either setting. Her many friends and family remember Barbara as a loving mother and grandmother who provided tenacious and unwavering support to her children and grandchildren; a parent who guided by example, not lecture; and a woman whose spirit, inner moral compass, depth of warmth and generosity, sense of humor and thoughtfulness of others characterized her to the last days of her life.

Barbara’s wish was to rest eternally beside her own beloved mother, Grace, and she would want this notice to recognize that fine woman, whom she adored and considered her guiding light. Barbara is survived by her brother Dave Streit; her sons, Mat, Fred and Norman Green; their wives Rudi, Karen and Riri; their children Kristina, Nicole, Annie, Anja and Philip; and her step-sons Tony and Jim Koessler, their wives Robyn and Eva, their children Michaela, Jessica, Jeffrey, Sheila, Ady and Jimmy, their spouses, Hal, Tony, Stephanie and John, and their children.

 

 

This article can be found at EGriz.com

A friend of mine sent me this article and thought I would share!!!

I remember Terry Dillon by Dan Foley, Editor, Montana Kaimin, MSU Student Newspaper

(Editor’s note: This first program for 1964 is dedicated in memory of Terry Dillon, all-time great MSU athlete who was drowned in a construction accident in the Clark Fork River May 28, 1964. Here is a tribute to Dillon, writen by Dan Foley, editor of the Montana Kaimin shortly after Dillon’s tragic death.)

The initial shock of the loss of Terry Dillon is past, one’s thoughts turn to the accomplishments of Terry – both as an athlete and as a man.
His athletic accomplishments are best known. He was one of the all-time Grizzly greats in football–a diamond that glittered where there were few other gems, a near All-American in a chool that has had few grid heroes.
I remember Terry Dillon.
I remember the game against the Bobcats in his senior year. The Grizzlies were down and almost out, trailing by two touchdowns and in danger of losing the ballon downs.
It was Terry who stepped back to punt–at the thime it seemed the only logical thing to do. But a second later the roaring crowd was on its feet as Terry side-stepped a Bobcat rusher, then sprinted down the right sidelines. When they hauled him down 22 yards and a first down later, they were on their way to their greatest victory of the year.
The Cats were sent scampering home with a 36-19 tin can tied to their tails. It was Terry Dillon who led the victory that afternoon, picking up 115 yards in one of the greatest games of his college career.
I remember the thrill of watching Terry on TV late that December as he prpresented MSU in the East-West Shrine game. And I remember leaping to my feet, as did every other football fan in Montana, when Terry intercepted an East pass.
But it wasn’t just on the football field that Terry shone. I remember watching a few of the home runs he hit into the trees across the street from the Clover Bowl. He also starred in intramural basketball and ironically, swimming.
I remember too, the day I heard that Terry had not only been moved to the active roster of the professional Minnesota Vikings, but that he probably would start the following Sunday. And start he did, for the rest of the season.
That was Terry Dillon. He started the year as an unknown rookie and did well in summer camp, before and ankle injury ended his chances of making the roster. He was put on waivers and released.
Other players might of quit, but not Terry. He stayed on, working out with the “Taxi” squad in hopes he might get another chance. And he got his chance as the Vikings moved him onto the varsity squad at mid-season.
We all remember his football records at MSU, most of them as an offensive player;but with the Vikings, Terry was a defensive man and a good one. He had just signed his 1964 contract a few weeks ago and his coaches said they were expecting great things of him.
He wasn’t a big guy, at least not by pro football standards. He carried only 190 pounds on his six-foot frame. Only a week ago he posed on Dornblaser Field with three of the high school athletes who plan to come to MSU on football scholarships. I remember ribbing him at the time because all three towered over him.
But he came to play ball, he had the will to win, and that was the difference between Terry Dillon and a hundred other pro fooball prospects.
But somehow, now, it’s not Terry Dillon the athlet, but Terry Dillon the man, that I remember best. Terry would have graduated next week. He came back winter quarter to pick up those few credits he lacked for a degree in Business Administration.
That was Terry Dillon. He was making good money playing football, but that wouldn’t last forever. There was the future to think about, after his playing days. He planned to be married soon and the degree was insurance for the future.
You would almost have to describe Terry Dillon as shy. He didn’t talk much, and if he did it wasn’t about Terry Dillon. After retruning from his first year as a pro, he came not as someone to bow down to, but as Terry Dillon. He didn’t say much about accomplishments as a pro, and when he did it was only with the greatest of urging.
But again, that was Terry Dillon.
Grizzly football coach Hugh Davidson has suggested retiring Jersy 22, the number Dillon wore as a Grizzly. This has never been done in MSU athletic history and I can think of no finer tribute to Terry Dillon, the athlete and the man.
For in the game of life, as in the game of football, Terry Dillon will always be remembered as a winner.
(Football Jersey Number 22 has been retired by the Montana State University Department of Athletics in memory of Terry Dillon)

http://civilianpublicservice.org/camps/103/1

Roy Wenger’s obituary appeared in the Missoulian, Dec. 2, 2004.

Roy Emerson Wenger

1908-2004

MISSOULA They also serve who hearken to a different drummer. Roy Wenger passed away peacefully Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2004, after a long and useful life.

He was born May 20, 1908, to Joseph and Emma Gerig Wenger in Smithville, Ohio, a Mennonite farming community, and grew up on the familys 80-acre farm. His parents passed on a love of singing and stories of the familys history, particularly those of ancestors who emigrated from Switzerland and Alsace to escape military conscription for Napoleon IIIs ill-fated wars.

Roy later wrote, As a 5-year-old, my mother kindly but firmly placed before me the attractive red and yellow pop-gun that had been given me by a well-meaning friend and after a long serious talk, persuaded me to put it in the morning kindling in the kitchen stove. We then went by horse and surrey to town where we picked out the most beautiful, gleaming red coaster wagon we could find. It was the substitute. I was almost mollified, and I never forgot the point she made in her quiet, loving counseling that we never point guns at people or threaten them.

He attended a one-room school with his older sister, Icie, and long remembered the taste of slices of grape pie his mother sometimes packed in his lunch pail. He later became the teacher of that school in order to earn the money to continue his college education. He graduated from Bluffton College, which instilled in him a lifelong love of choral singing, and in 1934, began teaching history at Cuyahoga Falls High School, south of Cleveland.

After several years, he went on to Ohio State University, earning a Ph.D. in education, specializing in the then-groundbreaking field of audio-visual education. At a square-dance party for students, he met Florence Heineman, who was not only beautiful and light on her feet, but a good conversationalist and completely at ease in meeting new people. On July 31, 1941, the start of a one-week vacation between university terms, they eloped to Kentucky, which had less red tape in the marriage regulations than Ohio. They were married for 48 years, until Florences death.

In late 1942, Roy was drafted, and as a conscientious objector, chose to do his alternative service with the Civilian Public Service program. His graduate school adviser warned him that such a decision would ruin his career, to which Roy replied, none of us really know whether it will ruin my career, and we hope that will not happen. He was sent to CPS Camp 5 near Colorado Springs, Colo., as the camps educational director, but within six months had been transferred to Montana to open the very first camp for something called smokejumpers, an experimental firefighting program piloted by Earl Cooley and Frank Derry in the summer of 1941, which had been put on hold because of the lack of available men following Americas entry into World War II.

Set in the Ninemile Valley, Camp Menard soon was populated by about 300 conscientious objectors, all of whom had volunteered and passed rigorous tests to qualify for the new program. Roy and Florence, the camp dietician for that first year, worked hard and made friendships that have lasted for more than 60 years. Roy credited the success of the camp to the COs, who were happy to have a chance to risk their lives in a cause for the benefit of humanity as a whole, and to U.S. Forest Service personnel who were highly trained, capable, reasonably tolerant and determined to make the project a success. He noted that the camps perks included excellent food, supplied by the Forest Service and set to logging camp standards, and a $5 allowance per man per month, twice as much as COs earned at other camps across the country.

At the close of the war, Roy and Florence moved back to Ohio and established long teaching careers. In 1948, when their daughter, Susan, was 3, Roy went to Kent State University as its first director of audio-visual education. He was awarded a Fulbright Lecturers Grant in 1954 and moved the family to Japan, where he taught at International Christian University, a newly established university on then-rural land outside of Tokyo. A one-year sabbatical turned into a 3-year-long experience and led to his involvement with international education and study-abroad programs throughout the rest of his life.

After returning from Japan, he became Kent State President Robert Whites development man, setting up programs and getting them running before turning them over to long-term directors. In this way, he served as KSUs first director of the Bureau of Educational Research and Service, of the Office of Institutional Research and of the Center for International and Comparative Programs, during which he set up exchange programs for students and professors in a dozen countries around the world England, Taiwan and Tanzania among them.

He remained on the faculty until age 70 in 1978. His final gift to the university was his work in helping to get the Center for Peaceful Change up and running in 1971. Now called the Center for Applied Conflict Management, it was one of the first programs in the United Stated to offer an undergraduate degree in conflict resolution and was planned as a living memorial of the events of May 4, 1970, when Ohio National Guardsmen killed four people and injured nine at Kent State during a student protest of the Vietnam War. Because of his own history, Roy served as an unofficial counselor to a number of young men who found their way to his office in the university library and wanted to discuss their feelings about military service. Roy told them about his experiences and said he was comfortable in suggesting alternative service or, in case of a young mans refusal to be at all involved with the Selective Service, in discussing the ethical issues involved in going to prison rather than submitting to the draft but also said he was not comfortable with the idea of leaving the country to avoid the draft. He believed that objectors had an obligation to serve their country in one way or the other as noncombatant or as an example of conscience. The events of May 4, however, caused him to question whether the government had broken its compact with its citizens and caused him to have more forgiving feelings toward young men who chose to leave.

After retiring, Roy moved to Missoula, where his daughter Susan Duffy, and her family live. True to his lifetime work at start-ups, he became heavily involved in establishing the Golden College at the University of Montana, an educational program that welcomed seniors and retirees. Because education had been the center of his life, he had difficulty at first when his granddaughter was born with Down syndrome. In later years he would laugh and say, I guess Keough taught me that theres more to life than education. He became very proud of Keoughs accomplishments and those of his second granddaughter, Mariah.

Florence died in 1989 and in 1992, Roy married Lillian Hoff, whom he met at a square dance. They delighted in each other and spent 12 very happy years together, traveling to elderhostels around the country and to Europe, where Lillian was born, on numerous occasions.

Roy sang with the Mendelssohn Club, helped out with the early International Choral Festival, sang with the Chancel Choir at University Congregational Church and was a longtime board member for the National Forest Service History Museum. He will be missed by many people for many reasons. He believed in a life of service, was one of the worlds best listeners and rarely had an unkind word to say about anything or anyone.

He is survived by his wife, Lillian and her daughter, Wendy Misevic; by his daughter, Susan Duffy and her husband Patrick Duffy; by his granddaughters, Keough and Mariah Duffy; by his sisters children, John Robert Smucker, Ralph Smucker, Stan Smucker, David Smucker and Emma Stutzman; and by several similarly long-lived cousins.

A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Monday, Dec. 6, at University Congregational Church.

Memorials may be made to the National Forest Service History Museum, the International Choral Festival or any other nonprofit that celebrates life and its wonders.D

Daisy worked as a maid for the Greenough family in Missoula. Daisy’s intriguing story can be found at the link below.

http://www.theperipateticstudent.com/blog/one-small-lifetime/

 

The article below is from the Providence Health & Services website.

 

 

School of Nursing, 1910-1978

 

 

• History

• 1910-1939

• 1940-1959

• 1960-1978

 

 

The Sisters of Providence

 

The Sisters of Charity of Providence was a teaching and nursing order from Montreal, Canada. In 1864, the sisters of this order were the first Catholic nuns to come to the Jesuit Mission of St. Ignatius, south of Flathead Lake in Montana Territory. Their intention was to teach the young women of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes on the newly created Flathead Reservation. The Sisters’ vocation and training had focused on education and nursing, both of which coupled nicely with the needs of the Native American mission.

 

From the St. Ignatius Mission, some of the Sisters went to Missoula where they founded Sacred Heart Academy and St. Patrick Hospital in 1873. The Sisters purchased a parcel of land from Washington J. McCormick, a Missoula attorney, located at the west end of town. It was the equivalent to two and a half city blocks. This same parcel of land continues to be used by St. Patrick Hospital as it changes, grows and evolves into the multi-faceted medical facility it is today.

 

A Booming City

 

By 1900, Missoula’s population had grown to 13,964 citizens; the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad was probably the most significant event in this development. The railroad created reliable transportation for Missoula’s growing economy, based as it was on trade, timber and agriculture. Western economic success, along with U.S. government land grants and homesteading laws, attracted further railroad interest.

 

Around the turn of the century, Missoula was still a wild and woolly frontier town, where males outnumbered females two-to-one, where hospital admissions were frequently due to gunshot wounds and broken or frozen limbs. These injuries needed the care of trained professionals. Missoula not only had a shortage of females but also a shortage of trained nurses. Other communities dealt with the nursing shortage by opening their own training schools for nurses. In the eastern part of the United States, the first schools of nursing were founded in 1873. Soon thereafter they sprang up throughout the country, wherever hospitals were able to promote, establish and maintain them.

 

Opening a Nursing School in Missoula

 

The first Training School for Nurses in Montana was opened at Columbus Hospital, also a Sisters of Providence ministry, in Great Falls in 1900. Other nursing schools followed: Montana Deaconess Hospital in Great Falls in 1902; St. John’s Hospital in Helena in 1905; St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula and St. James Hospital in Butte in 1906; and St. Vincent Hospital in Billings in 1913.

 

Mary Julian, Mother General from Montreal, visited the St. Patrick Hospital Mission and expressed interest in opening the St. Patrick Hospital Training School for Nurses. Following her wishes, a small brick structure behind the hospital opened in 1906. The school offered a three-year nursing program for women ages 18-33, with an emphasis on clinical experiences. St. Patrick Hospital Training School for Nurses was fully accredited by the Montana State Board of Nursing in 1918.

 

A Missoulian newspaper article, published when the last class graduated on June 1, 1978, relayed that student nurses worked 12 hours per day with classes and lectures being held at night. Nursing students in those days learned by example. Afterward, they performed the just-observed procedure directly on the patient under the supervision of a physician or an experienced nurse. Not only did nurses provide patient care, they were also responsible for cleaning rooms, transporting patients and even arranging patients’ flowers. Student nurse wages were $12 per month, including room and board. After graduation, nurses earned $6 per day for a 12-hour shift.

 

By the 1940s, the nursing program had progressed to the point where it needed a new building. In 1946 the School of Nursing moved into a state-of-the-art facility, including a modern laboratory, a library, a dietetic laboratory classrooms and a modern residence hall. The dormitory featured a sunken living room for entertaining and double occupancy student rooms to accommodate128 live-in students. In 1959, the school became fully accredited by the National League for Nursing, a distinction it held until its closure in 1978.

 

Nursing School Traditions

 

Edine Dussault Loran, class of 1961, and long-time St. Pat’s staff nurse, remembered that St. Patrick Hospital nursing students had distinctive uniforms for many years. Dresses were blue and white pinstriped, set off by white aprons, stiff-starch laundered by the hospital’s laundry. Fresh uniforms were issued weekly to each student nurse. After an initial six-month probationary period, incoming freshman students were issued a nursing cap, presented during a formal “capping ceremony.” The pure white, freshly-starched cap worn by the student-nurse distinguished her as a member of the nursing profession. Caps were an integral part of the uniform, and if a student was seen without a cap on a clinical unit, there were repercussions.

 

At the beginning of each academic year, senior students received a class pin to wear on their caps, which designated them as having senior status. Senior class members chose the design of the pin Caps, once the symbol of the nursing profession, began to lose their distinctiveness in the late 1970s when it became popular for all allied health personnel to purchase caps from local uniform shops and wear them with their uniforms.

 

Completing the student nurse uniform was a navy and red wool cape purchased by each student and required to be worn when “Formal Uniform” was required for ceremonies, processions and funeral honor guards. Capes also served as coats as students hurried back and forth between the Hospital and the Nursing Residence.

 

In 1961 the School of Nursing initiated the presentation of the Mother Gamelin Award honoring a graduating senior who had exemplified the virtues of Mother Gamelin throughout the student’s nursing career.

 

Partnering with the University of Montana

 

In 1969, following the national trend, the School of Nursing affiliated with The University of Montana for physical, biological, social science and nutrition courses, basic to the nursing curriculum. The following year, the first male student was admitted to the program. In all, seven male students completed the program in the remaining eight years.

 

St. Patrick Hospital School of Nursing Closed in 1978

 

The School of Nursing closed on Saturday, June 3, 1978 with the graduating class of 1978. Since 1906, 1,243 nurses completed this program. The duties of student nurses had changed dramatically since the previous days of bathing patients and scrubbing floors. The complex and growing body of scientific knowledge necessary to practice professional nursing, the rigid requirements of maintaining qualified faculty and the financial cost to students and the hospital all contributed to the decision.

 

The School of Nursing Building was demolished in 1984 to make room for the new St. Patrick Hospital, which still serves as the acute care facility.

See link below for list of graduates:

http://montana.providence.org/hospitals/st-patrick/about/history/school-of-nursing-history/1910/