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Medicine Women: The Story of the First Native American Nursing School
Winner of the 2019 Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association
Winner of the 2020 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for History-Arizona
After the Indian wars, many Americans still believed that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. But at Ganado Mission in the Navajo country of northern Arizona, a group of missionaries and doctors--who cared less about saving souls and more about saving lives--chose a different way and persuaded the local parents and medicine men to allow them to educate their daughters as nurses. The young women struggled to step into the world of modern medicine, but they knew they might become nurses who could build a bridge between the old ways and the new.
In this detailed history, Jim Kristofic traces the story of Ganado Mission on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Kristofic's personal connection with the community creates a nuanced historical understanding that blends engaging narrative with careful scholarship to share the stories of the people and their commitment to this place.
Winner of the 2020 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for History-Arizona
After the Indian wars, many Americans still believed that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. But at Ganado Mission in the Navajo country of northern Arizona, a group of missionaries and doctors--who cared less about saving souls and more about saving lives--chose a different way and persuaded the local parents and medicine men to allow them to educate their daughters as nurses. The young women struggled to step into the world of modern medicine, but they knew they might become nurses who could build a bridge between the old ways and the new.
In this detailed history, Jim Kristofic traces the story of Ganado Mission on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Kristofic's personal connection with the community creates a nuanced historical understanding that blends engaging narrative with careful scholarship to share the stories of the people and their commitment to this place.
416 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2019
6 people are currently reading
149 people want to read
About the author
Jim Kristofic
12 books50 followersJim Kristofic grew up on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona. He has written for the Navajo Times, Arizona Highways, Native Peoples Magazine, and High Country News. He is the author of The Hero Twins: A Navajo-English Story of the Monster Slayers, Navajos Wear Nikes: A Reservation Life, Medicine Women: The Story of the First Native American Nursing School, Reservation Restless, and Send a Runner: A Navajo Honors the Long Walk (all published by UNM Press). He lives in Taos, New Mexico.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 8, 2020
This is the story of the Ganado Mission School of Nursing set up in the 1920s and closed in 1951. As an interesting bonus, the first half of the book is the history of the Navajo Reservation since 1897. The history of Ganado Mission covers the last half of the book. The author covers the effects of the religious groups and the government on the reservation; both the good and the bad.
The book is well written and researched. I learned a lot about the workings of the reservation and the history of the Navajo Reservation. I have traveled over a good part of the reservation, therefore, was most interested in the history. I only wish there had been more individual stories about the Navajo nurses. Because of our current pandemic, a description in the book caught my attention. Kristofic was describing the Mission Hospital’s problems dealing with so many influenza patient (1930s) when they had a rush of an additional epidemic of diphtheria patients. I wonder how we would cope if we were suddenly dealing with two epidemics at once.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is sixteen hours and forty-seven minutes Jim Kristofic does a good job narrating his own book.
The book is well written and researched. I learned a lot about the workings of the reservation and the history of the Navajo Reservation. I have traveled over a good part of the reservation, therefore, was most interested in the history. I only wish there had been more individual stories about the Navajo nurses. Because of our current pandemic, a description in the book caught my attention. Kristofic was describing the Mission Hospital’s problems dealing with so many influenza patient (1930s) when they had a rush of an additional epidemic of diphtheria patients. I wonder how we would cope if we were suddenly dealing with two epidemics at once.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is sixteen hours and forty-seven minutes Jim Kristofic does a good job narrating his own book.
August 11, 2019
When I picked up this book, I assumed it would focus exclusively on the Nursing school at Ganado Mission. To my surprise, I found that this book is much more than that. Starting in 1897, Kristofic follows a rough chronological path through challenges and triumphs to explain how Ganado Mission came to be, and its lasting impact on the people of “the Rez.”
Kristofic starts with the mission endeavor: the Presbyterians had an interest in building a mission-hospital in the southwest, but U.S. government actions toward the Navajo and the Hopi, combined with cultural differences, made this endeavor very difficult indeed. The early Presbyterian missionaries eventually made inroads through alliances with local tradesmen and medicine singers, but it was never easy. Ganado’s greatest stroke of fortune--and eventually its doom--was the arrival of Dr. Salzbury at its reigns in 1929.
A driven man with a talent for fundraising, Salzbury built-up Ganado mission from field hospital to a community institution popular with all the surrounding inhabitants. Kristofic isn’t myopic; he minces no words describing Salzbury as a dictator. The staff and of the mission were grossly overworked and underpaid; the mission was more like a working ranch in operation than a school. Everyone contributed, and everyone stuck to the schedule. And of course, whatever the implications, Ganado itself was a missionary endeavor.
Comparisons between the approach at Presbyterian Ganado and the government-run schools at Fort Defiance and Tuba City are stark. For all that the mission was arguably destructive in its own way, it seems clear that it was the lesser of two evils, and in many cases actively beneficial as a source of medical aid. Salzbury and his predecessors created an environment with room for cultural syncretism, and largely respected the right of their patients to refuse care.
Serving as understaffed school, mission, hospital, and training ground for future nurses, Ganado Mission under Salzbury’s leadership hydroplaned through the decades leading up to 1950, skating by on what can only be described as momentum and willpower. When Salzbury left in 1950, Ganado was forced to downgrade its offerings. Today, it’s a shadow of its former self.
Starting from a position of minimal knowledge, I found Kristofic’s work very informative. His insight into the nuances of local history and culture breathes life into the stories of Ganado Mission. There are a few odd word choices (“sheep herder” instead of “shepherd,” for example), and some repeated information toward the end of the volume, but by and large I am impressed. Recommended to anyone interested in the history of the region, and more broadly to those looking for true-history culture-clash.
Kristofic starts with the mission endeavor: the Presbyterians had an interest in building a mission-hospital in the southwest, but U.S. government actions toward the Navajo and the Hopi, combined with cultural differences, made this endeavor very difficult indeed. The early Presbyterian missionaries eventually made inroads through alliances with local tradesmen and medicine singers, but it was never easy. Ganado’s greatest stroke of fortune--and eventually its doom--was the arrival of Dr. Salzbury at its reigns in 1929.
A driven man with a talent for fundraising, Salzbury built-up Ganado mission from field hospital to a community institution popular with all the surrounding inhabitants. Kristofic isn’t myopic; he minces no words describing Salzbury as a dictator. The staff and of the mission were grossly overworked and underpaid; the mission was more like a working ranch in operation than a school. Everyone contributed, and everyone stuck to the schedule. And of course, whatever the implications, Ganado itself was a missionary endeavor.
Comparisons between the approach at Presbyterian Ganado and the government-run schools at Fort Defiance and Tuba City are stark. For all that the mission was arguably destructive in its own way, it seems clear that it was the lesser of two evils, and in many cases actively beneficial as a source of medical aid. Salzbury and his predecessors created an environment with room for cultural syncretism, and largely respected the right of their patients to refuse care.
Serving as understaffed school, mission, hospital, and training ground for future nurses, Ganado Mission under Salzbury’s leadership hydroplaned through the decades leading up to 1950, skating by on what can only be described as momentum and willpower. When Salzbury left in 1950, Ganado was forced to downgrade its offerings. Today, it’s a shadow of its former self.
Starting from a position of minimal knowledge, I found Kristofic’s work very informative. His insight into the nuances of local history and culture breathes life into the stories of Ganado Mission. There are a few odd word choices (“sheep herder” instead of “shepherd,” for example), and some repeated information toward the end of the volume, but by and large I am impressed. Recommended to anyone interested in the history of the region, and more broadly to those looking for true-history culture-clash.
December 28, 2019
I wrote a book review about this book, which will hopefully be published soon. I enjoyed this book overall for being an intriguing read and narrative with vibrant characters and in-depth details of a marginalized history of the origins and years of the first Native American nursing school. However, I was disappointed that the book did not focus more on the Native American nurses, and specifically Navajo nurses. I know that my Diné great-aunt graduated from this nursing school, and it would have been wonderful to learn more about her experiences and those of her friends and associates.
May 31, 2023
I have read this and one other book by Kristofic. I have not been disappointed by either. I do not have a far away romantic notion of the peoples who lived in the area before Europeans. I have been to the Rez many times. Starting when I was a very young kid. This seems to me a true telling. No embellishments. Maybe there could be an over dramatisation or a fact misheard here and there? I would not be one to know. No one could know the truth from every angle. As a history goes? This is an excellent telling. Full of knowledge and certainly entertaining if you enjoy history. It is a story, yes. However it is so much more than that. There is a real sense that actually telling the story true was very important to the writer. This is lost in many more popular works of history, and dare I say it, on subjects speakers of primarily English wish to learn about. Truth often gives way to a need for the author to sell more books. I fully enjoy how this is NOT that. It is written as though the author is aware that it's a small audience of persons who care to learn and do not wish for some white washed "noble savage" tale. Which I am sure has already been written decades ago. I listened to the audiobooks read by the author. My only criticism is that in the telling it does tend to jump around a bit. I know it's difficult to write in a chronological order. However, it is somewhat easier to read. I probably should not have gone into this expecting this order of time. If you do read this review before reading? The book tells a series of historic stories that do overlap in time and focus on the subject. These chapters are also sometimes written so that only that one chapter could be read and understood on its own, without reading the entire book. They all fit together and you would be missing out not to read it all and hear them all fit together. Sometimes it is a little inconsistent in a chapter filling in all the details needed to fully understand. It can repeat at times also. Which is not a bad thing cause a cover to cover reader like myself can be reminded of something prior. Indeed do pick this up and read this subject. The more people filled with this knowledge the better.
July 23, 2020
I agree with the other reviews and enjoyed reading all the history of the Navajos and this amazing hospital. I look forward to hearing the author talk at the Wheelwright Museum book club meeting in September. I also enjoyed reading his book ‘Navajos Wear Nike’s’ about his growing up on the reservation when his mother was a nurse at the hospital.
November 13, 2021
Good history of the the early days in Az., mission, nursing school and hospital.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews