The Trees Remember
A Trilogy of Historical Novels by Joyce L. Kieffer
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Rebecca's World:
Mountains and Medicine
Rebecca Wagner's journey takes her from the 1890's virgin forests in the mountains central Pennsylvania to the newly established Johns Hopkins Training School for Nurses . . . and back again.
Juniata County, Pennsylvania: Home of The Trees Remember Trilogy
The word Juniata is thought to originate from the Iroquoian word “Onajutta,” meaning standing stone. Early indigenous people were the Onojutta-Haga Indians, then later the Lenape. However, in 1752, after the indigenous people were forced from their land, the Scot—Irish immigrants settled the land, and shortly thereafter the German farmers arrived and helped clear the land for farming.
Juniata (and Mifflin) County had everything the early settlers needed—the Juniata River as a source of food, water and transportation. Prior to the Civil War, lumbering was its first industry, which led to a number of iron-producing furnaces. Interestingly, forestry, woodworking industry still has a major presence, as does poultry, swine and dairy farming.
McAlisterville was named after its founder, Hugh McAlisterville in 1810. Interestingly, in 1901, Dr. Headings, the town doctor who mentors Rebecca in my story, built a house on the corner of Main Street and what is now Westfall Road. That white frame house still stands today.
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Long gone is Yarker’s Store, where Rebecca shopped and bought her first pair of men’s trousers. She also bought the supplies she needed to clean up the lumber camps and mitigate their flea infestations.
Early In my story, men gathered in this store to gossip. At first their target was the farm hand who supposedly burned down the Wagner farm. Then Rebecca’s grandparents, Mary and Joseph, were accused of thinking they were “holy” because of their biblical names. (I borrowed the characters names from my own maternal grandparents who actually were Mary and Joseph Wagner.) Later, the gossipers targeted Back So Straight, Rebecca’s Haudenosaunee mentor, and anyone associated with her. Gossip of this nature thrived in those days in small rural communities like McAlisterville.
Pioneer in Early Nursing Education: The Johns Hopkins Hospital Training School for Nurses
The Johns Hopkins Hospital Training School for Nurses opened in 1889, four years before the medical school was founded. Even back then, the newly formed school was considered to be a leader in nursing education, thanks to the vision and perseverance of pioneer nurses Isabel Hampton, Lavinia Dock, Mary Adelaide Nutting, Elsie Lawler, and Anna D. Wolf. Under the tutelage of Miss Nutting, the two-year program was expanded to three “to provide better and more thorough training for our nurses, but were, nevertheless, purely experimental.”
Women were considered most suitable for nursing “whose health, character, age, habits and education are such as will enable them to profit by the course of training, and to become credible, valuable, and permanent members of the nursing profession.” Women of good academic standing who grew up on farms were particularly sought as candidates for nursing school. Students came from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, New York, Illinois and Canada.
My research at the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, Johns Hopkins Medical Nursing, and Public Health, revealed that Henry Hurd, the first superintendent of the hospital, believed that “nursing the sick is not to be considered a trade but a learned profession, and that the school’s course of study should be more thorough and systematic that that of any other school in the land.”
Likewise, I wanted Rebecca to have the finest nursing education available to young women at the time. Baltimore was also accessible by train from Mifflin, Pennsylvania, near McAlisterville where she lived, and Rebecca’s trips back and forth from Baltimore became important background to the story.
The building that housed student nurses and other nursing leaders, was opulent compared to the modest log farmhouse where Rebecca grew up. It housed a library, spacious dining room, parlor, and was described as a “well-finished hotel of medium size,” and each occupant had a front room that was generously lighted and separately ventilated. Although during her first year she shared her room with three other students in the basement floor, it was beautifully furnished and spacious. In her second year she moved to a higher floor.
Even the hospital itself was modern, spacious and had a spectacular entrance with a huge statue of Christ in the center. There were large octagon and rectangular--shaped wards, gas lights and an abundance of windows. The hospital was well equipped and from early on, the focus was to experiment, innovate and offer the newest medical treatments known at the time.