GO WEST, YOUNG NURSE, GO WEST

GO WEST, YOUNG NURSE, GO WEST!

By Arletta Dawdy

Jane Arminda Delano heeded the call from New York’s Dr. Thomas Darlington, an old family friend and went to a “dusty mining camp in the Arizona Territory,” sometime in 1886. She may have been there a few months or upwards of three years for the record is lacking. Born in Montour Falls, New York in March of 1862, she was daughter of Union General George Delano and Mary Wright Delano and younger sister of Ada. The death of Jane’s father in the fever driven death march to the Battle of New Orleans inspired her to train at Bellevue Hospital to become a nurse.

 

Photo by TripAdvisor

In Bisbee, she had to deal with the ravages of yellow fever, typhoid and other conditions among her patients. Raw sewage, human and animal, ran downhill from the miners’ shacks and contaminated tent camps, canals and cabins below. Tombstone Creek carried the germ-infested liquids further afield. The sewer system wouldn’t be built until 1919. Jane would also have treated broken bones injured backs, crushed limbs and burns from mining accident victims. An advocate of public health nursing, she instructed wives, mothers and madams in caring for their own and neighbors in home visits. Issues of sanitation, nutrition, wound care and illness came naturally to her.

One fabled incident from her time in Bisbee has survived:

“All one long dark night she lay awake, listening to a mystifying. terrifying sound just outside her hut. It seemed to come, inch by inch, closer to her window. She watched the intense blackness lighten with the dawn, expecting to see the evil face of a marauder. When daybreak came, after an infinity of waiting for the realization of her terrors, she discovered that it was only her burro rubbing his sides against the corrugated tin walls of her shack.”*

The first Copper Queen Hospital was held in an abandoned mine cave in the hillside, probably the original Glory Hole. This would have been the “hospital” in which Miss Delano served. Later, perhaps around 1888 and under Dr. Darlington’s direction, the next hospital, usually referred to as the “first,” was made of cardboard and was called “the cracker box.” It is hard to imagine how such a structure stood the test of bad weather unless treated with a chemical concoction.

    She pushed for professional nursing training and recognition for women.  Until this time, most nurses were men and women were seen as less than charwomen or slops-pan attendants, despite skills developed in the habits of homemakers and battlefield caregivers over the centuries. Miss Delano went on to teach nursing as the RN degree evolved at New York’s Bellevue Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania

As pestilence and war raged in the southeast with the beginnings of the Spanish American War, Jane Delano ventured into the swamps of Florida; commandeering mosquito netting, she was among the first to drape it over the multitudes of deathly ill typhoid and yellow fever patients. It was a time and place when no one in their right mind would have gone; she’d been there before Bisbee, and knew what to expect. She insisted on sterile living environments for her cadre of nurses, including the mosquito nets to protect them. 

    Little is known of her private life. She took time from her teaching and nursing experience to care for her elderly mother in the early 1900’s. She spent much time gardening, reading to her mother and visiting with friends at their homes in New York and Charlottesville, Virginia. Other than men she worked with over the years, there’s no insight to be found as to romantic liaisons with men or women. She appears to have led an independent, single life.

After 1900, this champion of professional nursing was called to be the First Superintendent of Women Nurses in the Army Medical Corps (1905-1912) Her resignation was accepted by Major General (Doctor) Leonard Wood who described her thus:  

“…gained confidence (of officials) by her sober, solid judgment and by her willingness to consider opposing viewpoints…usually able to get her recommendations through.”**

Jane’s career with the American Red Cross was to once again lead the way in developing the women’s nursing unit of that organization. She gave her energies over to organizing, recruiting and training as well as the myriad administrative responsibilities necessitated by a brand new organization. Mary Clark, author of the missing biography of the exceptional Miss Delano, is quoted in the History of the American Red Cross; she saw her friend as:

“…of such uprightness of character, purity of life and good judgment, that they (her staff) could be relied on to do the discreet and right thing wherever placed.”**

Aside from charming and uniquely elegant wordage of the early 20^th century, Miss Delano emerges as a very special person in any language.

 In January 1919, Nurse Delano sailed to France for an inspection tour of America Red Cross hospitals before they evacuated. Her intent was to evaluate the conditions the nurses worked under and the needs of locals for continuing public health services.; she planned to make programmatic recommendations. She was worn, tired out, and had a sore throat and ear troubles. She entered Base Hospital #69, in Savenay, France, was operated on several times for rmastoiditis but the doctors held little hope for her recovery.

    

She died on April 15. 1919.   Jane Arminda Delano’s last words were:

                        “My work, my work, I must get back to my work.”*

She was buried in France until brought back to a heroine’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery. An award in her name is given annually to a deserving nurse at the Cochise County Hospital, formerly known as the Copper Queen Hospital, in Bisbee, Arizona. A daughter of the world, Jane Arminda Delano found a brief yet lasting place as a Sweetheart of the West.

References::

 * Gladwin, Mary E., The Red Cross and Jane Arminda Delano, W.B.Saunders Company, 1931;Kessinger Legacy Reprints, date unknown

** Dock, RN, Lavinia L. et al, History of American Red Cross Nursing, The MacMillan Company, 1922; Kindle version available

*** Clark, Mary A., Memories of Jane A. Delano, Lakeside Publishing Company, 1934, Out of Print      

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Arletta Dawdy writes from Sonoma County, CA of unusual women. Her historic tales are set in Cochise County, AZ She draws on family history, extensive research, and a strong imagination..The Huachuca Trilogy books are available on Amazon. She is currently at work on BISBEE'S GLORY.