Thank you, Neola, for bringing back memories with a picture of another good neighbor, Ingolf Medlang. I haven’t heard that name for years. He and my Dad were good friends. Thanks again!
Dale Pritchard
MUSICAL JAMBOREE
On Thursday, February 21st at 6PM there will be a Musical Jamboree
Held at the Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt honoring
Mr. Hubert Allery. This is an annual doings which pays tribute to some of the elder living musicians of the area. Theresa (Keplin) Marcellais, her sister Rita Gable and Sandra Poitra first initiated this event in 2011.
The first Jamboree in 2011 honored Mr. Eddy “King” Johnson, with the second year going to Mr. Mike Page. Hubert has been singing and playing the Guitar since he was at a young age of 8 or 9. During the 1960’s thru the 1980’s he was one of the finest Traditional Country singers around, he played with numerous Bands around the Dunseith and Belcourt areas. He now resides in Fargo ND and operates an Antique Shoppe.
New York Times Link
By SCOTT WAGAR Bottineau Courant
When it came to caring for the patients with tuberculosis at San Haven, physicians and nurses played an important role at the sanatorium and often placed their lives in danger treating the patients with the deadly disease.
Physicians at San Haven held strict duties while on the job. During the Great Depression, it was noted in the Biennial Report of the Superintendent of the North Dakota Tuberculosis Sanatorium ending June 30, 1936, that on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday morning were surgical days for the physicians who conducted surgical procedures on the patients’ lungs so that their lungs rested and did not spread TB in their lungs.
The report also stated that on Tuesday and Friday mornings the doctors of the San attended to patients who had treatments done to them, while Thursday afternoons the doctors read, interpreted and dictated x-rays that were taken of patients outside the sanatorium who were referred to the medical facility.
On Friday afternoons and Sunday mornings, the physicians would volunteer their time to see people from around the state to have mantouxs (a skin test for TB) and x-rays performs on them for diagnostic purposes.
When it came to nurses at San Haven, their duties to the patients were numerous.
A normal day for the nurses in San Haven were to conduct a variety of task, some of which included taking patients’ vitals, giving medication, charting, changing their bedding, emptying sputum bags that patients would cough and spit in from their TB and caring for the patients personal needs.
One of the personal needs the nurses care for in the winter months at the San was to keep the patients’ warm during their open air treatments, which meant having the windows of sanatorium open 24 hours a day so that outside air could circulate through the rooms.
In order to do keep the patients’ warm, nurses provided patients with hot water bottles along with half a dozen or more blankets for each patient. When it came to the water bottles, the Biennial Report of the Superintendent of the North Dakota Tuberculosis Sanatorium ending June 30, 1932 stated that on an average night in the 1930s nurses would go through 55 water barrels of hot water to provide the patients’ warmth in the cold nights that some time dipped to minus 40 below outside. Eventually, water bottles would be replaced with electric blankets for the patients.
The sanatorium also educated nurses. On Jan. 1, 1922, a one year nursing training school was opened at San Haven to train nurses on tuberculosis care, which brought nurses from a diverse number of places to be trained.
In the beginning at San Haven, nurses cared for patients without any protection for themselves, which often placed nurses in a dangerous position of getting TB.
As researchers learned more about TB and how it was spread, growing and masking was introduced to the San which protected the nurses from the patients’ TB and the patients from the nurses who brought any infectious diseases into the sanatorium.
According to Bottineau resident, Lorraine Millang, who worked in San Haven’s laboratory as young adult and participated in the State Historical Society of North Dakota’s Oral History Project on San Haven in 1996, gown and masking was no easy task for the nurses and all the staff members of the San. Upon entering San Haven, the nurses and other employees would have to shower, dress in their uniforms and then gown and mask themselves before going to work in the sanatorium.
After their shifts were over, they would remove their gowns and masks, their uniforms and would shower again before leaving the medical facility. (It should be noted here, Millang also stated in her oral history that all staff members who came on the patients’ floors at the San had to gown and mask. Depending on the type of work one did at the sanatorium, staff members at times would have to double gown (kitchen employees bringing food to the patients) or triple gown themselves (lab technicians working in the labs).
The nurses were also the largest staff at the sanatorium. In order to accommodate all the nurses at the San, the state constructed in Nursing Home in 1930 to house all the nurses and some of the female employees at the San Haven.
Unfortunately, the first and only murder to take place at San Haven happened within the nurses’ building. The structure was located on the west side of the San near a grove of trees that surrounded the sanatorium. One nurse, who mistakenly forgot to shut her windows blinds one evening, was observed by a man from the Turtle Mountains who noticed she was alone. He slipped into the building through a basement window, then into her room where he raped and murdered her before escaping out of her window.
The man, who wore a unique and different cap, dropped his hat at the window as he made his escaped, which was discovered by the local authorities. He was arrested, charged, found guilty of his crimes and was sentenced to the state penitentiary.
Physician and nurses (an all staff members) at San Haven had to deal with acquiring TB while working at the sanatorium, of which some of the staff members were diagnosed and had to become patients within the medical facility.
However, these physicians and nurses, in their duties and oaths and medical providers, placed their own safety aside to treat patients with TB in the state. Of the entire medical personal in the history of North Dakota, the physicians and nurses who worked at the San can be considered the bravest and most self-sacrificing physicians and nurses in the state amongst one of the most contagious disease to ever enter into North Dakota.
The Stranger
A few years after I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family.
The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.
As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche.
My parents were complementary instructors:
Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey.
But the stranger … he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.
If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future!
He took my family to the first major league ball game.
He made me laugh, and he made me cry.
The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn’t seem to mind.
Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet.
(I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)
Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them.
Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home – not from us, our friends or any visitors.
Our long time visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush.
My dad didn’t permit the liberal use of alcohol but the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis.
He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished.
He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex.
His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.
I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger.
Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked … And NEVER asked to leave.
More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents’ den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.
His name?….
We just call him ‘TV.
(Note: This should be required reading for every household!)
He has a wife now … we call her ‘Computer.’
Their first child is “Cell Phone”.
Second child “I Pod ”
And JUST BORN THIS YEAR WAS a Grandchild: IPAD
OH MY — HOW TRUE THIS IS!!!