Interview with Martha Prewitt Breckinridge, March 30, 1979

Interview Summary

Martha Breckinridge came to Wendover as it was being completed and served as secretary to Mary Breckinridge in addition to doing the cooking, making slip covers, and performing other tasks. At one point she became postmaster. She relates some of her experiences while performing courier duties and even recalls negotiating for some land for an outpost center. One duty she performed was to take children with illnesses to the train at Krypton to go on to the hospital at Louisville or Cincinnati. Breckinridge tells of visitors arriving for the dedication of the first hospital building and enumerates the difficulties of trying to engineer the journey to Wendover from the train, with everyone on horse or muleback or in jolt wagons. She describes Mary Breckinridge in detail and gives anecdotes of her travel with Breckinridge to raise funds for the FNS.

Interview Keyword

Family histories. Fund raising Horses--Transportation Nurses Philanthropists. Rural health services

Interview LC Subject

Appalachian Region--Social life and customs Breckinridge family Breckinridge, Mary, 1881-1965 Country life Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. Hospital buildings--Design and construction Mary Breckinridge Hospital Rural conditions

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Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.