Interview with Nellie Asher, August 27, 1980

Interview Summary

The FNS delivered Nellie Asher's first child in 1925. She asserts that in the beginning the local people would not use the nurses because of a rumor that they killed babies. Asher indicates that all of the medicine that her family needed was provided by the FNS. She also remembers one nurse who nearly drowned trying to ford the river at flood stage. Asher's father logged for a living, and she recalls some local businesses in Hyden before World War Two. Asher never met Mary Breckinridge but saw her on occasion. Breckinridge was fond of Asher's son and would see that he had a special gift at Christmas. Asher worked at Hyden hospital in the late 1930s in the kitchen and the laundry. She comments that the time she spent there now seems to have been in another century.

Interview Keyword

father was logger local rumors of FNS pre-World War II businesses

Interview LC Subject

Children--Health and hygiene--Kentucky Medical care Nursing

Interview Rights

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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.