I can’t remember the last time I heard rain approach. It takes a combination of personal and environmental stillness. This morning I sat on the porch swing in the screened in area outside the Garden House reading the final pages of East of Eden. As I rocked back to the closing ties of Steinbeck’s well-woven story, I began to hear a rush in the distance. At first it was faint enough that I believed I could be imagining it. Soon that thought passed and the noise was closer and louder. With the overcast sky sealing me into the mountains, I thought of rain. I swung quietly tracking the advance, my heavy book resting in my lap. The sound of thousands of water droplets crashing into broad leaves compares to a deep, soft wind. Before I knew it, the rain reached me and I was surrounded. Small bits of moisture fell tapped on the roof above me. I re-engaged my book and sounds of weather moved into the back of my mind.
From all this talk of rain, you’re probably thinking that’s all it does here at Wendover. To be honest, it does feel that way sometimes. In my three weeks on site it’s been just a handful of days without moisture looming in the clouds above. Everyone here says it’s uncommon for this time year and that they’re thankful. As with many spots in the Southeast, drought has been vicious over the last decade or so.
It’s not like back in Mary Breckinridge’s days. Rain or shine, when a baby’s on the way out the only option was to saddle up and hit the trail. Life goes on despite inclement weather. Comparably, we’ve got it easy these days at Frontier Nursing Service (FNS). Wendover’s old buildings are well insulated, equipped with all the modern conveniences and of course there are cars and roads.
I guess I should clarify before I continue. Wendover is to the town of Hyden as a suburb would be to a city or large town. It’s an area, but it’s own entity. Wendover is about 2-5 miles of Hyden. There’s a small “corner store” (they sell bread and milk) here, but no gas station, pharmacy, parks, etc. FNS was started in Wendover back in the early 1900’s. When I refer to Wendover I’m talking about FNS’s compound up on the hill.
Wendover is primarily comprised of 3 buildings: the Big House the Garden House, and the Barn. The Big House is a two story log cabin that Mary Breckinridge and the nurse midwives originally lived in. The Garden House was for administrative purposes and courier housing. The Barn – home of the horses.
Now the Big House is a Bed & Breakfast and houses a commercial kitchen - where we take and make all our meals. The Garden House remains much the same: the bottom floor is laundry and storage, the middle floor is administrative offices, the top is dormitory style housing (pretty nice ones – individual rooms with wooden floors). The Barn accommodates extra B & B guests, the gift shop and some Breckinridge artifacts.
Scattered across the hillside are random single room enclosures that served larger purposes when this place was not only packed with people but also horses, livestock, chickens, garden produce and compost.
Now its remains quiet and scenic, especially on the weekends and holidays when the staff doesn’t come in and there are no guests.
Memorial Day Monday at Wendover is the perfect time and place to celebrate freedom by observing weather patterns, re-reading favorite books, compiling cover letters, and roasting cauliflower.
Tomorrow will be my second day shadowing one of the midwives at the hospital.
I am slowly rapping my head around women’s health and fetal heart beats…
Tonight the fog hung low between the mountains. Going on two weeks in Southeast Kentucky I'm beginning to pick up on a pattern. If there's a break after it rains (even if the water pours again in a few minutes time) the fog falls into the valleys. The moisture hangs, held by the hills. It sits silently, peacefully, dangling until it disappears.
The landscape here is worthy of many passages. I'll try to keep it short this time; I'm sure it's bound to become a recurring theme. It's a wet, warm, moist version of the Colorado mountains that were my home for so many years. The soil is rich and dark. The ground wears a constant coat of green. Water curls around every mountainside. The sky sits high atop the peaks and out of reach of human hands. There are only mountains and valleys. You're either on top of the world or tucked right into it.
I'm here in Leslie County, KY as a "courier" with the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS). FNS was founded in 1925 by Mary Breckenridge as a commitment to the health under-served woman and children in the forgotten, out of reach corners of Appalachia. She studied nurse midwifery abroad and recruited fellow practitioners to tend to the medical needs of the community. The nurses rode out at all times of day and night on horses. With their medical equipment nessled in saddle bags, they forged rivers and raced through tight woods to deliver babies and treat illness. At the time, Leslie County had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the country. This ratio was dramatically altered in less than 10 years.
In the 1940's M.B. started the first Nurse Midwifery School in the U.S.
Originally couriers' primary responsibility was to care for the horses - feeding, brushing, shoveling up after them - along with other odds and ends around Wendover. The preface of the program is for young women (and now men) to come experience rural America and rural health care and instill a sense of service and community.
Here I am living at Wendover - M.B.'s original home and administrative site. It's a handful of small buildings from the 1920's on the side of a mountain across a one lane (pot-holed) road from the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River.
Today couriers split there time between community outreach (teaching in the schools, Habitat for Humanity projects, tutoring at the adult learning center, organizing the library, Hospice supporty, anything and everything that arises) and shadowing local medical professionals (Dr.s, PAs, NPs, RNs, CNM, etc.).
I came to get a taste for midwifery as a profession. After knocking the idea around for years, I decided to genuinely check it out. Not to mention, I do love to get a taste for a new community.
There's the introduction. More to come with frequency.
