Doris Southall; Alaska Nurse Doris was born Anna Doris McCarty in Liberty Penn. July 24, 1944 to James McCarty and Vesta nee Fritzsche McCarty. Her father worked in the coal mines and her mother was a teacher. Her mother wanted her to follow her foot steps and become a teacher. When she was about 4 or 5 years old she had her tonsils taken out. Back then they didnt go to the hospital to have it done. The doctor and nurse came to the house to do the surgery. After that she always wanted to become a nurse. She worked and paid her way through nursing school graduating at the top of her class. She married John Southall in 1929. They had a son about 1931 John Southall Jr. Her husband also worked in the coal mines, dying in a car accident in 1949 at the age of 45. Doris came to Fairbanks to visit her brother and mother in 1953 and never left. She went to work at the St Joseph Hospital in Fairbanks in 1953. She was hired in 1956 as the school nurse for the North Star Borough School District. She started at the Main School where her brother was principal. She worked for many different elementry school during her career in Alaska. She worked with Jack Bartlett to start the program Operation Head Start in the North Star Borough School District 1965. As a school nurse her duties were to check students hearing and vision working with the doctors in Fairbanks at the time. In 1956 there was a fire at the Northward Building, she organized emergency placing for tenants at the Main School calling the Red Cross and The Salvation Army for help. She helped during the 1967 flood calling all the nurses for each school to open them for people that needed help. She retired from nursing in the 1970s but was always a very active member in the community and politics. She worked with the Alaska Nurses Association helping to find Alaska nurses and record their history while working at the library at the University of Fairbanks. She worked on the Governors Advisory Committee for the Aging and served as the chairman of the Task Force on Retirement Roles and Activities. She represented Alaska in 1971 at the White House for the National White House on Aging conference. She served on the Fairbanks Health and Safety Board, the Board of Directors for the Hillcrest Home for Boys, The Fairbanks Cancer Society, the North Star Borough Comprehensive Health Planning Program and the Senior Citizens Center. She served with Dr Williams Wood to replace the badly damaged St Joseph Hospital after the 1967 Flood. Doris was honored by all of her the work she did to help get the funding to build Golden Towers by naming Southall Manor after her when it was built. There is also a scholarship set up at the University of Fairbanks in Doriss name. Doris died at the Fairbanks Pioneer Home on December 4, 1996 at the age of 91
Posted on: Sat, 12 Apr 2014 10:40:11 +0000
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