Interview with Wilma Duvall Whittlesey, November 30, 1979

Interview Summary

Wilma Whittlesey first read of the FNS in the rotogravure section of the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1929. She answered a secretarial ad and became Mary Breckinridge's secretary from 1929 to 1936. She calls Breckinridge a renaissance woman and tells of her many accomplishments. Whittlesey traveled with Breckinridge for speaking engagements and answered much of her correspondence personally. Mention is made of Breckinridge's correspondence with an English spiritualist and the disposition of the letters. Whittlesey comments upon federal assistance during the Depression and upon road-building in the area but indicates that the local economy was not dependent upon factors very much influenced by outside events. After initial local resistance to federal programs, Breckinridge persuaded key individuals of their value. Whittlesey was at one time part of a team of nurses who conducted a survey in the Ozark Mountains concerning implementation of the FNS in that area.

Interview LC Subject

Breckinridge, Mary, 1881-1965 Children--Health and hygiene--Kentucky Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. Medical care Nursing Secretaries Whittlesey, Wilma Duvall Whittlesey, Wilma Duvall--Interviews

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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.