Medicine Women
The Story of the First Native American Nursing School
Published by: University of New Mexico Press
Winner of the 2019 Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association
Winner of the 2020 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for History-Arizona
After the Indian wars, many Americans still believed that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. But at Ganado Mission in the Navajo country of northern Arizona, a group of missionaries and doctors--who cared less about saving souls and more about saving lives--chose a different way and persuaded the local parents and medicine men to allow them to educate their daughters as nurses. The young women struggled to step into the world of modern medicine, but they knew they might become nurses who could build a bridge between the old ways and the new.
In this detailed history, Jim Kristofic traces the story of Ganado Mission on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Kristofic's personal connection with the community creates a nuanced historical understanding that blends engaging narrative with careful scholarship to share the stories of the people and their commitment to this place.
Jim Kristofic grew up on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona. He has written for the Navajo Times, Arizona Highways, Native Peoples Magazine, and High Country News. He is the author of The Hero Twins: A Navajo-English Story of the Monster Slayers, Navajos Wear Nikes: A Reservation Life, Medicine Women: The Story of the First Native American Nursing School, and Reservation Restless (all published by UNM Press). He lives in Taos, New Mexico.
"Kristofic demonstrates thorough research and includes intricate details and photographs, breathing life into the past with a sense of the scenery, peoples, and historical circumstances."--Farina King, New Mexico Historical Review
"The book presents a clear, readable narrative that is layered with detail."--Rebecca Tannenbaum, Medical History
"Kristofic is a fantastic storyteller."--The Taos News
"The scope of Jim Kristofic's new book is really of epic proportions, an intriguing, accessible history of the Ganado Mission on the Navajo reservation in northeast Arizona."--Albuquerque Journal
"Medicine Women contributes to an engaging body of work that values oral history and emphasizes storytelling in historical analysis."--Gianna May Sanchez, Journal of Arizona History
"In Medicine Women, Jim Kristofic adeptly combines archival research with good, old-fashioned storytelling. He draws readers into this world through Diné leader Ganado Mucho, trader Juan Lorenzo Hubbell, US government representatives in the territory, and the varied inhabitants of the land--native, Hispanic, and white."--Nancy J. Taylor, Director of Programs and Services, Presbyterian Historical Society
"The book is a history of the largest medical mission among the Diné (Navajo people), 1902-1969, and its crown jewel, the first Native American nursing school. You'll find herein appealing portraits of mission staff and students, both Diné and non-, and feel the triumphs and failures of an oasis of learning."--Klara Bonsack Kelley, coauthor of Navajo Sacred Places
"Jim Kristofic offers a veritable twentieth-century saga of the rise and eventual eclipse of the Presbyterian Mission school, hospital, and nursing program at Ganado against the background of Juan Lorenzo Hubbell's success as an Indian trader in a unique part of the Native world. In telling of the triumphant confluence of missionary dedication and Navajo endurance against the unrelenting pressure of post-World War II change, he offers a moving story equal to the power of Thomas Gray's unforgettable 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.'"--Paul G. Zolbrod, author of Diné bahane': The Navajo Creation Story
Foreword. Ghosts in the Graveyard
Acknowledgments
Prologue. The Last Night
Chapter One. Peace Time on Bad Soil
Chapter Two. The Red House Man
Chapter Three. Greenhorn Clergymen
Chapter Four. Like Real Men
Chapter Five. Mechanical Tendencies of Mind
Chapter Six. The House with the Pointed Top
Chapter Seven. The Walking Doctor
Chapter Eight. Into a Large Place
Chapter Nine. Water from the Rock
Chapter Ten. These Dark-Minded Indians
Chapter Eleven. A Miracle in Five Million Pounds of Gray Stone
Chapter Twelve. Practicing Medicine in the Desert
Chapter Thirteen. Red Women in White
Chapter Fourteen. The Flying Lady
Chapter Fifteen. The Indian Child Is Not Capable
Chapter Sixteen. Fast Slipping Away
Chapter Seventeen. No Longer Feel Suspicion
Chapter Eighteen. Both Feet out of the Grave
Chapter Nineteen. We Can Begin Yesterday Afternoon
Chapter Twenty. A Nest of Stars
Chapter Twenty-One. An Oasis in the Desert
Chapter Twenty-Two. Teenagers First, Navajos Second, Indians Incidentally
Chapter Twenty-Three. Adventurous, Challenging, and Enchanting
Chapter Twenty-Four. English Only
Chapter Twenty-Five. The Waste Places
Chapter Twenty-Six. Work with Them Day to Day
Chapter Twenty-Seven. When She Leaves It the Task Is Done
Chapter Twenty-Eight. A Slave Camp
Chapter Twenty-Nine. A Flower of Our Civilization
Chapter Thirty. Out into the Country
Chapter Thirty-One. This Situation Has Run the Length of Its Course
Chapter Thirty-Two. The Ganado Mission High School
Chapter Thirty-Three. They Had No Other Choice
Chapter Thirty-Four. We Have Reached a Critical Point
Chapter Thirty-Five. A Colorful Eroded Desert Place
Epilogue. Chusk'eh Daa'--At the Bank's Edge
Appendix. School of Nursing Graduates
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Also Of Interest
