REMEMBERING MINNIE HAMILTON, R.N.

Her Life and Legacy

1900-1981

Minnie Blanch Hamilton was born in the year 1900 at Grantsville, Calhoun County, West Virginia. She was the tenth child in a large and active family which came to include fifteen children. Their varied interests included law, medicine, banking, business, teaching, publishing, politics and government.

From accounts of her friends, her early years were crowded with pranks and mischief from which she managed to extricate herself time after time with the help of a sunny disposition and cheerful personality. Even then, according to a friend of long standing, she was endowed with a desire to be of assistance to others. Thus, to many it was no surprise when Minnie entered the St, Joseph Hospital School of Nursing in Parkersburg in 1919 and graduated in 1922. After graduation, Minnie was engaged in work as a private duty nurse until 1926. From there she went to Grafton City Hospital where she worked as a surgical nurse.

In 1933, Miss Hamilton returned to her home in Grantsville where she was employed as county school nurse. It was here that she began what became her vocation and avocation which lasted for the remainder of her active life, the field of public health. The position of Calhoun school nurse in 1933 bore little resemblance to the school nurse of today. There were probably more students in 1933 than now, but there was one county high school and one elementary school with eight grades. There were perhaps a couple two-room schools, all rest were one room schools and hardly any of them were linked with paved roads. There being no practical way for the school nurse to assemble her patients at a central point, Minnie Hamilton did the only thing that was left to do - she carried her public health program to the patients. Soon her battered Plymouth became a familiar part of the landscape on all roads of the county. With clanking chains and roaring muffler, she pushed through the mud and snow of rural West Virginia. She brought her vaccinations and inoculations, her home treatments and nursing care where necessary, her counseling as to personal hygiene and problems of adolescence into the schools and to the students where ever she found them. If a child didn't happen to be in school on a particular day and had shots or some other attention due them, Minnie had no hesitancy about going to the home, or the corn field, or even the fishing hole to make certain that each child received the health care coming to them.

There are no statistics to quantify the results of Minnie Hamilton's one woman public health crusade, but it may suffice to say that there is not to be found in Calhoun county any person who was in school during her tenure as school nurse, who does not remember the point of her hypodermic needle, the thrust of her often blunt and always to the point medical advice, or just plain advice she gave on any matter she thought might be troubling the youth. If she found that a child might be missing school because of a scanty, or entirely lacking wardrobe, no books, or an empty lunch bucket, the deficiencies were quickly corrected in an unobtrusive manner by an alert nurse who, as was said, "had her ways."

In 1938 Miss Hamilton decided to broaden her horizons and yielded to the blandishments of a federal government recruiter and became a nurse concerned with the problems and nourishment of migrant field workers. Throughout World War II she remained in this employment and worked about the country, in different places; Eleanor, W.Va., Exmore, Va., also Orlando and Homestead, Florida.

She left the federal service in February, 1947. At that time she returned to her beloved Calhoun County to accept an appointment as county health nurse. Minnie plunged into duties in this capacity with the same enthusiasm in 1947 as she had as school nurse in 1933. Again, she didn't wait for the problems to come to her, she went to the problems. She visited homes, she enlisted the assistance of community leaders and interested citizens. She established a store of clothing for the needy, in all sizes and for all ages. She saw to it that those in need of sanitarium treatment, entered with as few worries as possible, not only about their own condition, but the welfare of the family they were leaving behind.

Miss Hamilton was at all times a professional as she carried the art and science of nursing to the people, in person, probably the last of her breed; it was not at all unusual for her to spend forty eight hours or more in a mountain home with a woman in a difficult pregnancy, who for some reason or other could not be transported. She gave the same time and dedication to those with a highly communicable disease, who for their own welfare and that of the public, required attention that only she was in a position to give. One of her contemporaries spoke with accuracy when he recently said, "I can hardly walk down the street but what I see at least one person, who I know, from my personal knowledge would have died years ago, had it not been for professional attention given by Minnie Hamilton." And another said; "Yes, and I know a splendid woman, with a fine family, who as a school girl was 90% blind. She was headed for a lifetime of complete blindness. Minnie faced the wrath of an irate father who, insisted his daughter was beyond mortal assistance and threatened Minnie with law suits with all kinds of trouble, because she, "stuck her nose in." Minnie continued to make such a fuss that the child was, at last, sent to the school for the deaf and blind at Romney where she was given specialized attention and treatment. A year later the girl was back home with almost 20 - 20 vision. It was just as Minnie said, "A matter of malnutrition."

At a testimonial given Miss Hamilton, by the Grantsville Civic Club (about 1963) one of her many friends said of her, "You have used the hypodermic needle on our children, our grandchildren, and everybody else's children in the county, from Frozen Run to Pine Alley. You gave advice before they were born and visited them and advised them after they were born. Your name has been synonymous with service to all of Calhoun County and your family. Whenever and where ever there was illness, you were there to help. You have collected clothing for the needy, helped many who had to leave this area for the sanitarium and for medical help, and have done many things beyond the call of duty."

On May 2, 1968 the West Virginia Public Health Association Presented its Merit Award to Miss Minnie Hamilton. In 1983 Calhoun county designated its new health center, (then under construction) be named the Minnie Hamilton Health Center. In 1984 a scholarship in honor of Miss Hamilton, was endowed by Dr. and Mrs. Richard Hamilton at Parkersburg Community College, with the recipient each year to be a nursing student with preference to be given to students from Calhoun County.

Minnie Hamilton retired from her job in the fall of 1972, when she was far past the retirement age. She still had penetrating questions to ask each visitor about recent happenings, dealing with public health. Usually the visitor would say after leaving her presence, "And I thought she had retired. "

She was honored by her fellow courthouse employees with a reception at the time of her retirement, October 30, 1972.A huge crowd attended her reception, which was open to the public. The event was perhaps distinguished more by the variety of those in attendance, than by than by their numbers. The rich and the poor, the professional and the laborers, the saints and the sinners, all were there. They were from all walks of life, indeed there may have been a few there who would rather not say exactly how they earned their livelihood. As they mixed and talked it was apparent to any eavesdropper that all of them had at least one thing in common: their lives had been touched by Minnie Hamilton, and in touching, their lot was improved.

Miss Minnie Hamilton died in the summer of 1981. She was 81 years old.

In 1995, when Calhoun General Hospital, plagued by insurmountable financial problems, was forced to close, Minnie Hamilton Health System became active in an initiative to facilitate reorganization and guarantee much needed access to emergency services and primary health care in Calhoun and surrounding counties.

In 1996, Minnie Hamilton Health System assumed control of the closed Calhoun General Hospital and the facility was reopened under the new name, Minnie Hamilton Health System.

Miss Hamilton must surely be considered to have been a legend in her own time, who will always be remembered by those persons she served so well in Calhoun County. She was nominated and accepted into the West Virginia Public Health Hall of Fame in 1985.

Today, Minnie Hamilton Health Care continues to provide emergency, in-patient, skilled nursing and primary health care services to the area.

REMEMBERING MINNIE HAMILTON, R.N.,1901-1981; Her Life and Legacy
The Hur Herald from Sunny Cal; On-line Newspaper, http://www.hurherald.com/old/MissMinnieHamilton_25Aug00.html
January 30, 2003.