Health history

The people of Kalispell Regional share their stories in nurse's book

Nancy Greer had an epiphany five minutes into writing "The Biggest Little Hospital in the West: The History of Kalispell Regional Medical Center."

Her book was about more than the growth of services and the construction of buildings.

"I realized it was about the people who provide care," she said.

Flip open to nearly any page and their stories quickly draw in the reader.

There was a woman doctor in 1918 who lost a leg tending a patient on a roadside. Nun nurses worried of bears invading their quarters or burned the midnight oil washing towels for surgery to save money during the Depression.

A doctor in the early 1900s drove a buckboard to Eureka in six hours to tend to diphtheria victims. Another physician worked day and night for five days during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

The ALERT stories provide more thrills and laughs.

Greer's book recalls a doctor and nurse delivering a baby in a cramped helicopter above Hungry Horse as the pilot held the patient's hand while flying one-handed to the hospital.

Another story recalls a feud between a male flight nurse and a rude woman employee that ended with "Arlene" strapped on a

gurney with her mouth taped shut. Then an emergency patient arrived and the two had to shove her into the morgue room.

In all the excitement, they forgot Arlene until hours later when they ran back to free her. Fortunately, the night-maintenance man had witnessed their antics and cut her loose.

"She was much more polite after that - really settled down," one of the nurses recalled.

Greer, a nurse who has served in multiple positions at the medical center, drew these stories from the memories of many present and former employees. She also dug up information from the hospital's huge collection of scrapbooks.

"I went through all of it four times," Greer said.

She came up with the book concept as her thesis for a master's degree in health care administration. Her professor told her to pick a topic that had meaning for her.

After some thought, Greer decided to trace the evolution of health care in Kalispell, which translated to a complete history of Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

"I had absolutely no idea what that meant," she said with a laugh. "It took me two years and a month."

Greer got started by setting up blank pages labeled for each year from 1888, the year of the first documented medical care provided by Dr. E.F. Cunningham.

Other early physicians include Dr. Arthur Coe, Dr. Alexander MacDonald and Dr. John Sanders who practiced in Demersville until the town moved overnight to Kalispell in 1892.

Although several doctors practiced frontier medicine, the first hospital was founded by a nurse, Ella Webber. According to Greer's narrative, nursing was Webber's career but her goal was to "conduct a hospital" when she moved to Montana from Spokane.

Webber traveled widely to other hospitals for design ideas, then sold subscriptions to citizens for free hospitalization to raise the money to build the first hospital on the corner of Center Street (then Railroad Street) and Fourth Avenue East.

Opened in 1896, the hospital charged $1 to $3 a day, depending on room location and level of service provided by Webber and "two servants." Patients received nursing, room, meals and laundry service.

Due to lack of private space, the first hospital catered only to men although the first three trustees were women - reported as one Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. James Conlin and Mrs. W.A. Conrad. By 1904, a large addition was completed for $10,000 that also accommodated women.

Greer called Webber "the first managed care businesswoman in the area," as evidenced by contracts to provide care to workers of the Great Northern Railway and local sawmills.

Although forward-thinking and resourceful, Webber did not anticipate the impact of the railroad moving its main line to Whitefish just after her expansion. The reduced patient load forced her to close Kalispell's first hospital in 1905.

In subsequent years, according to Greer's book, physicians tended the sick at their offices and in patient homes. Several other facilities opened then closed before the community organized Kalispell General Hospital Corporation. This group negotiated to bring the Sisters of Mercy to operate a hospital that opened in 1910 in a temporary location, then moved to Fifth Avenue East in 1912.

Greer writes that the first patient was Thomas Nielson, 29, who suffered from typhoid fever.

Three new nuns had just arrived Aug. 1 from Iowa to help open the hospital. They were taken away from their first dinner in Kalispell, a piece of steak on a slice of bread, to admit Nielson.

"To care for this patient, Sister Mary Vincentia traveled downtown and purchased three items with their leftover travel money: 'a thermometer, an ice cap and a hot water bottle,'" Greer wrote.

Although cared for on the fly, Nielson healed and was discharged six weeks later with a bill of just $28.

In the first four months, the sisters cared for 56 people, including patients with ailments from pneumonia and typhoid fever to broken bones. Other patients gave birth and one child had surgery performed by Dr. Albert Brassett to correct "double club feet."

"I love the stories about Dr. Brassett," Greer said .

She drew upon the memories of Sylvia Murphy, Brassett's daughter, for many of those stories. Murphy also contributed treasured family photographs for the publication.

Her father, a native of Norway, arrived in Kalispell on the Fourth of July in 1909. Murphy recalled that he walked to patients' homes in town and rented a livery stable buggy for country calls. Brassett practiced until age 80.

One of his noted surgeries involved helping remove the leg of one of Kalispell's first female physician, the one mentioned earlier who was hit by a car while tending to a patient on the side of a road.

As reported by the 1918 Kalispell Bee, Dr. Phoebe Bottorf was asked to stop and tend to a woman on the way to the hospital. The physician was returning from seeing another patient in Whitefish when disaster struck.

The newspaper reported that she was making up a prescription in the headlights between cars when she was hit and pinned against the Packard's spring cross bar by another vehicle.

"Dr. Phoebe was caught against the bar, both legs being broken, the left leg just above the knee, and the right knee and lower end of the thighbone crushed," the Bee reported.

The doctor refused opiates and directed a man on the scene to apply a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. About 40 minutes later, her husband, another physician, arrived on the scene to take her to Kalispell General Hospital.

Brassett, along with a Dr. Monroe and Dr. Frances Houston performed the surgery. Greer learned from interviews that "Dr. Phoebe" recovered, received an artificial leg and went on to practice in the Flathead for 50 years.

Some of Greer's other favorite stories involved early equipment, particularly the 1935 vintage X-ray machines as recalled by Dr. Malcolm Burns in his manuscript on the early medical history of the Flathead.

"These were quite a device. They had a geared wheel and you would crank up the thing. It was a glass wheel with brushes on it. You would crank until you were exhausted and the wheel would have a static charge. Then this was shot through a Crooke's Tube and you would get a picture of something."

Greer reported stories that revealed the Depression years were lean for the hospital as well as everyone else. The Sisters of Mercy earned their name, treating about one-third of the patients of that era for free or barter.

"One man who was unable to pay his wife's hospital bill returned with wood for the Sisters in winter and food the following summer," Greer wrote.

Burns wrote about the grim conditions he encountered at Kalispell General Hospital in 1934. Lights were not replaced and concrete floors were not covered. The Sisters washed towels each night for the next day's surgeries.

People tried their best to avoid hospitalization. The hospital census as well as Kalispell's population dropped as people left the area to look for work.

But troubled times eventually passed and the hospital survived and thrived with a huge expansion in the late 1940s. Kalispell's hospital remained at that location until 1976 when Kalispell General Hospital became Kalispell Regional Hospital and moved to Buffalo Hill.

Greer's chapter "Kalispell Regional, the Later Years," includes the founding of ALERT. It includes the story of a young man, who after a logging accident in 1975, died while lashed to the outside of a helicopter on the way to the hospital.

She recounts Emergency Department Manager Ruth Barber's memory when she got to the victim when the helicopter landed.

"I remember reaching under the protective covering and all I felt was cold, just cold; and I said to myself, there has to be a better way than this to try and aid a victim."

After more tragedies, the community and hospital organized ALERT to provide medically-supported helicopter transport which saved many lives in the decades to come.

Greer's book documents hospital specialties and expansions continuing at a dizzying rate through the chapter entitled "The 21st Century, 2000-2006." At the end, she returns to her opening theme of how the medical community grew and prospered.

"It's the people," she said.

The book sells for $20 at the hospital gift store and Norm's News. Any profits go to Northwest Healthcare Foundation.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.