by Helen Bradfield Shambaugh
Editor’s notice: This text was printed initially within the Winter 2003 situation of Goldenseal: West Virginia’s journal of conventional life. It’s reprinted right here with the permission of Goldenseal and the creator.
Shambaugh grew up locally of Woodrow. She first met Patty Norton whereas Norton was working as a college nurse in Paw Paw and the creator was a scholar there. The 2 met once more throughout the 1950’s whereas Helen, her husband, and kids have been dwelling in Magnolia, Morgan County.
Rural well being care throughout the late 1940’s and 1950’s was a lot completely different than it’s at the moment. Generally, individuals lived a lifetime with out ever seeing a health care provider. As quickly as sure immunizations grew to become obligatory for youngsters getting into public faculties, nonetheless, some assist got here within the type of the county well being nurse, who would journey all through a county for the aim of immunizing kids and educating sensible well being care measures for the house.
Patty Norton of Morgan County was one such nurse. She lived within the Jap Panhandle of West Virginia for many of her life. All through her profession, she devoted herself to the individuals of this area and their well being care wants.
Patricia “Patty” Jane Feeney Norton was born November 4, 1913 on the household homeplace within the Mapleside space of Cumberland, Maryland. She graduated from St. Mary’s Excessive College and entered the Allegheny Hospital College of Nursing of Cumberland, graduating from there in August 1934. She was awarded her R.N. diploma in October 1935. Patty then labored on the maternity ward and was a private-duty nurse at Allegheny Hospital.
On June 22, 1936, Patty married James B. “Jim” Norton of Paw Paw, Morgan County. The newlyweds constructed a home on Jackson Avenue in Paw Paw, the place they started raising a household that might e
ventually develop to incorporate three sons. In 1947, the Nortons moved a number of miles throughout the Hampshire County line to the small neighborhood of Pin Oak. My household lived at Pin Oak on the time, and that is how I first got here to know Patty.
In January 1949, Patty was appointed Morgan County Well being Nurse, serving Cacapon District and the Paw Paw space. On this function, she traveled from faculty to highschool and from neighborhood to neighborhood all through all of Morgan County. It could take a e book to inform all of Patty’s experiences, however one distinctive part of her work as county well being nurse passed off within the city of Magnolia throughout the 1950’s.
Nestled deep in a valley between the mountains and the Potomac River, Magnolia is a small, remoted railroading neighborhood. It was as soon as a thriving city with docs, dentists, a bakery, church buildings, and numerous shops after a piece of the B&O railroad was constructed via there in 1914. Practically worn out by the 1936 flood, Magnolia by no means totally recovered.
My late husband Lindy M. Shambaugh was from Magnolia. He labored for the B&O there earlier than serving within the navy in World Struggle II. Upon being discharged from the Military and getting his work rights restored, Lindy regained his place as trackman with the railroad and was stationed again at Magnolia. So, we went there to stay in Could 1948.
The one phone in Magnolia on the time was the railroad telephone within the residence of a B&O monitor foreman. There was no electrical energy in any of the properties till 1956. There have been nonetheless no personal residential telephones when our household moved from there in 1960.
When Patty started her work at Magnolia, there was one county street then unpaved main into the village. This street, with deep ravines off the edges, climbed and descended steep ridges winding sinuously alongside Sideling Mountain for seven miles down into Magnolia. The street ended at a cemetery on the decrease finish of Magnolia, and the one method to depart was to show and return the way in which you got here.
Round 30 or 40 households resided in Magnolia at the moment. The 2-room faculty was closed after the 1951 faculty time period, and college students have been transported by bus to Paw Paw. There was one church served by a circuit preacher and one small grocery retailer owned and operated by C. I. Effland.
So, when Patty Norton wanted a spot at Magnolia from which to conduct her month-to-month well-child clinics, she requested if she would possibly come to our residence. We readily agreed. As soon as a month, Patty got here from her workplace on the second ground of what was then the Paw Paw firehouse. Offering firm on the journey and serving to Patty with report maintaining was Tiny Delawder. Generally, a number of of Patty or Tiny’s kids got here alongside, as nicely.
“I bear in mind when that was nothing however an outdated dust street,” says Tiny Delawder. “How we might lean for the sharp curves going round that mountain! Patty had an outdated bag of some type that she carried her medical provides in. We’d load scales and different provides within the again [of the car], together with whichever of our youngsters occurred to be going with us.”
When Patty arrived at our residence, she would enlist assist carrying tools into the home. Scales for weighing infants have been arrange on my kitchen desk, and grownup scales have been set on the kitchen ground.
Moms of the Magnolia neighborhood, and typically from as distant as Nice Cacapon, got here with their kids. A few of these individuals had been born and raised in Magnolia. Slightly than going to the month-to-month clinics at Berkeley Springs, which might have been a a lot shorter drive for them, they got here throughout Sideling Mountain to Magnolia. Along with seeing Patty Norton, this was additionally an opportunity for them to go to with household and pals who nonetheless lived within the space.
Patty typically handed out free nutritional vitamins and any well being care brochures she may deliver. She gave directions for utilizing drugs and treatments for the whole lot from the right way to combine child formulation to curing impetigo. She gave dietary recommendation, together with handing out recipes and wholesome menus to encourage higher diets. Prenatal and submitnatal care and data got to expectant and new moms. Advising a health care provider’s care when discovering the necessity, she typically referred sufferers to the crippled kids’s clinic at Martinsburg. Patty checked blood pressures, tended minor accidents, and taught sanitation practices.
Explaining the risks of communicable illnesses similar to whoopng cough, diphtheria, smallpox, measles, and polio, in addition to warning of the hazard of tetanus, she administered immunizations. If a toddler howled whereas receiving a shot, Patty would smile ruefully and say, “Oh no! I’m sorry. Now you gained’t need to be Patty’s pal. However I don’t need you to be sick.”
Youngsters performed collectively whereas they waited their flip to be examined. Moms exchanged the newest household and neighborhood information. A life insurance coverage agent from Paw Paw would attempt to make it to Magnolia on clinic day to gather month-to-month premium funds. Catching lots of his purchasers at this one location saved him having to drive to their particular person properties. Women introduced their insurance coverage premium books alongside, in order that he may mark them paid.
With no telephones and few automobiles in Magnolia, communication with our kids’s faculty in Paw Paw was fairly poor, typically inflicting misunderstandings between lecturers and fogeys. In her capability as county well being nurse, Patty additionally served as on-site faculty nurse at Paw Paw. When she got here to conduct her clinics at Magnolia, Patty would deliver us updated on the newest faculty developments, someoccasions appearing as a tactful go-between for folks and lecturers. She would advise us of any epidemics or different horrors, similar to head lice or different communicable outbreaks, on the faculty and would train us preventative measures and cures. Realizing that it may benefit everybody concerned, Patty and Tiny used the college’s mimeograph machine and printed a small month-to-month publication to ship residence with the youngsters, giving well-child clinic dates, explaining new faculty insurance policies, and telling of upcoming occasions on the faculty.
Folks trusted Patty. She all the time had a prepared ear as a counselor and confidante and was typically informed of private conditions. Whereas skilled in her work ethics and stern when administering essential medical recommendation, she additionally laughed and cried with us. Patty by no means belittled a well being care downside. Telling us that no query was too unimportant or ridiculous to ask, she would say, “Bear in mind, I needed to study all of this, too.”
Some individuals attending the clinic at Magnolia didn’t instantly depart when their well being care wants had been met, however stayed till Patty had gone for the day. At summer time’s finish, we had picnics on clinic days. We set out tables beneath the massive maples in our entrance yard. Moms, in addition to Patty and Tiny, introduced favourite meals to share.
For a number of years, the clinic was carried out in our residence. Later, Patty arrange at different properties locally, taking turns with different Magnolia households who attended the clinics. In the present day, at any time when of us from these days in Magnolia meet for a reunion or different social occasion, somebody will say, “Bear in mind when Patty got here to have the clinic?” Then all of us snort at reminiscences of Patty, recalling how she typically had to assist a mum or dad pull a reluctant little one from beneath the kitchen desk to obtain an immunization, or how she gently chided and gave rueful seems to be when her directions for well being care had not been obeyed.
Patty retired in 1975, however remained lively with many pricewhereas volunteer initiatives through the years. Patty is an honor to her occupation, her neighborhood, and her state.
Helen Bradfield Shambaugh lives in Paw Paw. She is the mom of seven and has 10 grandchildren and 10 nice grandchildren. She and is the creator of a number of Goldenseal articles, poems and performs. She has written for newspapers and magazines and is a 40-year contributor to Customary Publishing Firm’s writing seasonal church applications, recitations, poems and different materials.