Individual Details
Ruth Hallanger Jenson
(15 Jun 1915 - 10 Mar 1989)
NAME: "Hallanger" middle name, Jane (Lund) Vega, JFR 1993
Ruth began to write the story of her life before her death that Jane Vega shared with me for this family account. It appears to be a first draft and ends about 1957 or 1958.
I was born June 15, 1915 in Hudson township out at Uncle Jens' farm below Bushes' Hill. Mrs. Bush delivered me because Dad couldn't find Dr. Ford. So I was never registered in the Courthouse even though Dr. Ford came later and put drops in my eyes. Bushes and Alexanders were real good neighbors.
Aunt Ida took me to Roberts church. Dad was gone a lot. Dad got the flu in 1918.
We lived on the farm out there until the fall of 1918 when we moved to a house two miles north of down town Hudson on 35. Neither the dog (Shep) or I liked the new home. We wanted to go home and started out-- the dog kept going but I was brought back. He was caught in a trap and died out there.
This house hand't been lived in except by bums so when Dad started a fire in our wood heater the bed bugs came crawling out from under the wall paper in the living room. I remember one room had dark purple wall paper with big green cabbages. The yard was full of great oak trees. We used to lie in the long grass and watch the clouds float overhead and chase and catch fireflies in the
evening. And swimming all summer.
There were four bedrooms in the house but my Aunt Ingaborg and Uncle Ted and their two children lived up here in two rooms. After they moved to Cannon Falls there was a bit more room for the six of us.
In 1918 on February 24th, the twins were born so they shared my mother's room. Some uncle or cousin always lived with us. Henry Jenson, dad's cousin,lived with us many years after the war. The triplets, Jane, Janet and John were born in 1924.
We also had a wood cutter, Charlie MaPark and a hired man who probably worked for room and board. They all shared Ole's bedroom. Later Anne and Helen shared a bedroom and Laura, Leila and I shared another. For a time Louise, Aunt Ida's daughter, lived with us too. Aunt Ida and her new husband both died of the flu at Ancker Hospital in St. Paul. Later Louise was adopted by Westerheims, Mom's cousin.
For awhile Uncle Olaf and Aunt Olga lived with us with their three children. Owen was my age, Hendrietta older, about Ann's age, and Norman who was the twins age. We called the twins and Norman triplets, "mean, meaner and meanest". Later Uncle Olaf moved to Whitefish, Montana where he got a job on the repair crew of the Great Northern Railroad.
My dad was a mail carrier and he drive his long route with horses. His route was so long he picked up a fresh horse at Furgers; also a bowl of hot soup in the winter. In the spring he drove with a very high buggy with a rumble seat in which he kept the mail. Sometimes the water that crossed the road was so deep he could only see the horses backs. He sat up high and put the mail on the seat bench beside him so it wouldn't get wet. When it was nice weather in the summer he would sometimes stop in Burkhardt where he left the Burkhardt mail and we got a cone and some white or pink peppermint or spearmint candies with crosses on one side. That was a real special treat for us. Later we got a "car" of sorts and we'd put the mail in the boxes dor Dad.
I started school in North Hudson when I was six years old. I was much taller and bigger than my classmates so the teacher, Miss Gamble, moved me three times until I got a seat that fit. So I came home and said "I'm as smart as Helen (the brain) 'cause I'm already in the third grade."
The triplets were born when I was nine.
My third grade teacher was Helen Padden. My next teacher was Lethea Pason and my sixth and seventh grade was Russel Erastus Nelson.
I went to Confirmation class at Bethel Lutheran church.
I went to Hudson to eighth grade and Kate Ryan for a teacher. She had taught my Dad, my aunt Karine, Ole, Ann and Helen so she'd start out at the beginning and go down the list and call my name. Sometimes she'd even include the triplets names too. I often had answered the question she had asked before she got ready calling off the list of names.
I started high school in the same building. Helen and I walked to school together. We took turns breaking a trail in the snow. We had lots of teachers then--Dorothy Alden, Miss Lee, Mr. Cook, Miss Edith Hanson, Mrs. King (I was in her home room all four years), Mr. Bargen, Miss Francis Kidd, Mr. Weatherhead, Helen Hughes and many others whose names escape me.
I graduated June 3, 1933, the year I became 18. I went back to working for Krattleys for whom I had worked summers and Saturdays since I was nine years old because Mrs. Krattley and Mary were ill and Martina needed help so I was sent. I worked for Martina til I was 19. [Margaritha Krattley and her daughter, Mary, both died in 1932.]
Then I went to River Falls State Teachers College. We drove every day with Al Linder, Mary Dorwin, George Mullen and Frank Siriani. We had snow banks so high we couldn't see the farms. The only day we were late was May 2nd when we had a very heavy wet snow storm and we got to school at 2 o'clock. I only went to River Falls for two years because that was all the training a country school teacher needed.
Then I started working at Burkhardt for Burkhardt's, the people who owned the mill. My next job was at the Hotel for Smiths, then I started to work at Ray Millers who had seven children. They lived in Hudson on 7th street next to my grandparent's home. Salary $2.50 a week.
Eileen broke her leg then and Ole needed someone so I went to hayward where Ole taught school. They lived on a second floor and Eileen could not do steps for a while.
After I came home I started to work for Lindermans who lived north of us on a farm. I could sleep late, 4:30 a.m., and worked until 8 or 9 at night. There I got $3 a week. It was still Depression.
My next job was a Clymers where I worked for $4 a week. They lived in town on 4th street. I used to get up at 4 a.m. and go fishing with Otis and Teddy. We'd walk out to Trout Brook and fish. It was a lot easier work there and kind of fun.
I left Clymers in 1937 to go into nurse training. Leila also went with me. It was a dreadfully hot summer and fall. We had patients in the hall lying on rubber sheets and covered with a sheet and they were sprinkled with water to try to cool them down--some temps up to 105 or 106 degrees. Many older people died.
We spent our first months in training going to the University of Minnesota where he had classes with the doctors or would-be doctors. We rode by bus daily to the U.
After we had our basic training we started on duty--washing bed pans, passing wash water and cleaning thermometers and false teeth. One of my class mates cleaned all the teeth at once and got them mixed up so we had to run around to find to whom they belonged--this was on the men's ward so most of the men just laughed.
We started working on the medical floors where we took turns--a week on the bed pan cart. We got very attached to our patients because they were returnees so often. After three hard, long years and many funny, peculiar and sad experiences, I graduated in October 1940. While I was at St. Peter for my Psyc training I pulled the ligaments in my right leg so I was hospitalized for a month so I finished later than my class mates. It was lonesome without my close friends.
When I came back to Ancher Hospital as a graduate our older nurses were called to the Army so we got to be supervisors real suddenly. I was A.M. or P.M. (alternating) supervisor of Contagious under Miss Birgit Tofte. Betty Engleman was the other day or evening supervisor. We had many contagious diseases then--polio, meningethis, dyptheria, whooping cough, chicken pox and measles were some of them. I worked on Contagious till the fall of 1941 when I went to Deconess Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. There was a shortage of nurses up there and an old neighbor of mine worked there and asked me to come there.
I was working there when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. There was a cry for nurses in the Indian Service and Army. I couldn't get in the Army so I went to Alaska to Bethel in the Indian Hospital. We had a near escape when one engine of the plane didn't start. The pilot deplaned us and most of our luggage and went around the mountain and was pulled into the Gastanan Channel and was drowned along with our luggage. Fortunately I had taken my duffel bag off the plane with me so I could work at the Indian Hospital in Juneau until we got our luggage back again. Of course what we got back wasn't much good. It was water soaked and a mess. After a short stay in Juneau I went by plane to Bethel. It was not too cold in Juneau but when we deplaned in Northway it was -40 degrees but it felt warmer there because it was a still dry cold. I didn't have any winter gear--just shoes and rubbers and a winter coat. I was carrying my coat because it felt so warm until they told me that it was -40.
We went on to Fairbanks where I stayed in the Hotel until there was flying weather and a plane out of Fairbanks to Bethel. I met a real nice old lady who had married a miner, Jessica Mather. She was from England. We stayed friends until her death in 1952. Fairbanks was an interesting city. I met people from all over the world including Russian fliers who came in after planes from the U.S., also sourdoughs, miners, writers, poets, artists--Jessica knew everybody.
Finally the weather cleared up and I went to Bethel. To clear the fog from the run way they ran cars and trucks across the runways.
It was late February when I got to Bethel. The flight was beautiful and sunny but we went through a thick layer of clouds into snowy, cold, damp weather. They called in inversion.
I was met at the airport by an Eskimo driver who could understand very little English. He insisted I go to the Road House. I said, "No, hospital". After a long argument he took me to the hospital which seemed to be miles out of Bethel.
I was met by Dr. Langsarn, Miss Mills, Ann Gillis and a nurse from the south (who took pills of all kinds) and Esther Trodahl, a sister of the missionaries in town, Ann Miller, the traveling nurse and the old former traveling nurse who remained my nemises as long as I was in Bethel.
Then came Miss Hanson--it wasn't an addition--she was our head nurse. She was a tattle tale to the Doctor and jealous that we had fun together--the other nurses and I. So she tried to get us in trouble all the time. She was peculiar--she talked to herself in the BR--first as a woman and then as a man answering herself. She was a yes man who made our lives miserable.
I left Bethel in July 1945. Mom and Dad and Laura met met at the depot. My first trips to St. Paul was on V-J Day. The streets of the city were lined with people shouting and running. It was a scary situation for someone who hadn't seen anything move faster than our old hospital truck or jeeps or dog sleds. I wanted to go back to Bethel.
My next job with the Indian Service was near Salem, Oregon at the Chemawa Indian School. It was beautiful country, different than any I'd ever been in. Jane and Laura both came to Salem, Jane as a lab tec and Laura worked at the Indian School. While I was in Salem I helped get a Lutheran Free Church started. We got a pretty good congregation started by door to door visits. Pastor Bob and Gloria Krueger were our good friends.
After the war the nurses who had left Chemawa came back and I was transferred to Tacoma to the Indian Hospital there. After I was there a couple weeks the head nurse had a heart attack and left and I was head nurse. It was rough but I survived. I was in charge of a large TB ward.
I stayed in Tacoma til Dad became sick from a severe heart attack. Then I transferred to Hayward Indian Hospital in Wisconsin. Dad died in August of '47. I stayed at Hayward for a while so I could come home and help Mom on my days off. Aunt Clara moved in with her. So after a while I left Hayward as Mom didn't need me.
I went to Chicago and got a job at Hines, Ill. at the Hines Veterans Hospital. It was near Oak Park, Ill. While at Hines I met Steve Pedi and his wonderful family. It made my life away from home a joy. I had a new family.
I worked at Hines, Ill. until May 1951 when I came home to be with Mom for a while. In May I met John Lund whom Mom knew through uncle Teddy and from __rland Church. He brought Ted up to see Mom and then went on to Siren to deliver lumber for his brother Axel.
During the summer Doris Wells came to stay with me. I knew her from Tacoma hospital. John kept returning often with Ted and more lumber and I thought he liked Doris who was a beautiful Indian girl. He was always so good to her. One day he asked me to go for a ride with him and he proposed. After the summer, on September 29th, we were married at Bethel Church in Hudson. Jane Jenson and Orlando Benson were our attendents. John tried to make a match between Jane and Orlando his friend.
After John and I were married Mom moved to Spooner and had a home built where she and Jane lived. Jane had gone through nurse training after her stretch in the Womans Air Corps so she worked at the Spooner hospital.
John and I were buying the farm so we lived here. When the polio epidemic ran rampant in St. Paul I went back to work on Contagious again. I rode in every day and caught a bus to Ancker from down town St. Paul. I worked there until April of 1953. I also had a garden where I raised glads to sell (18 rows of glads) to the florist.
Jane was born May 8th at Ancker Hospital where I worked. After Jane was born I stayed home and cooked and baked and enjoyed home and a new baby.
I stayed home and then John was layed off from the shops so he stayed home and baby sat and I went to work at Miller Hospital in St. Paul in February of '54 where I met and made lots of friends. Mary was born November 19th. Then I stayed home with my two babies until the Hudson Hospital opened and Dr. Bourget asked me to come to work part time. Ruby Benson babysat til one of us got home.
I started to work part time nights. John worked at Sommers and afternoons and evenings at the hospital as janitor or in maintenance. I worked at Hudson until before Joie was born [Feburary 1, 1957]. I specialed the nite before she was born and then went to take care of Mrs. Gartmann and then went home and started in labor. I went to the hospital early in the a.m. and Joie was born in the bed as the delivery room was busy.
After Joie was born I stayed home for a while. Meantime I specialed for Dr. Anderson's heart patients.
In the fall when Sommers left for the winter John just worked afternoons at the hospital so he was home when I wasn't. I worked four nights a week at the hospital.
Then the school asked Joan Richie and I to be school nurses. I used to help Mrs. Hope when she needed me.
Here Ruth's story ends. We know that she spent two years as a school nurse in Hudson before going to work at Health Center in New Richmond. She retired in 1976 after four years at the Willow Park Care Center in Burkhardt. In retirement she stayed active, serving as a Girl Scout leader and nurse at the Girl Scout Camp.
HSO, 7Jan1943, p5, c3
Miss Ruth Jenson, R.N., left on Monday eve, for St. Paul, where she has followed her profession of nursing, since coming from Michigan, and where he co-workers at The Anchor, gave her a farewell party. Miss Jenson left on Tuesday for Bethel, Alaska, where she has signed up for Civil Service, and will follow her profession. Miss Jenson is a Hudson High School graduate and well and very favorably known in Hudson, where her hundreds of friends and relatives wish her luck and God speed in her new life. She expects to stop off at Whitefish, Montana to visit her sister, Jane, and uncle, Olaf Jenson and daughter, enroute.
HSO, 11Feb1943, p5
The address of Miss Ruth Jenson, R.N., is in care of the Indian Nursing Service, Bethel, Alaska.
HSO, 29 Nov 1945, Willy's column
Indians . . .
Miss Ruth Jenson, the registered nurse daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Nels Jenson, Jr., is now employed with the Indian Service at Chimawa, Oregon. Miss Jenson, prior to her present assignment, spent considerable time in Alaska working with the Eskimos.
Hudson Star Observer, 16Mar1989
Ruth Hallanger (Jenson) Lund, 73, of 1005 Highway 35 N., a nurse for nearly 40 years, died Friday, March 10, at Hudson Memorial Hospital.
She was born June 15, 1915, in Hudson, the daughter of Nels O.J. and Gurina (Hallanger) Jenson.
In 1933 she graduated from Hudson High School, after which she attended River Falls State Normal (now UW-River Falls) for two years. She later went to the University of Minnesota while attending Ancker Hospital School of Nursing in St. Paul, from which she graduated in 1940.
She spent two years nursing at Ancker Hospital.
After leaving Ancker Hospital, she was employed from 1942-43 at St. Peter Hospital in Hines, Ill., and from 1943-45 at Washington State Indian Service in Tacoma.
From 1945 to 1948 she lived in Alaska, working for the Indian Service of the U.S. Department of Interior. According to family members, her sojourn in Alaska was one of the highlights of her life and often spoke of it endearingly.
After returning from Alaska, she found employment in St. Paul from 1948-1953 at Ancker and Miller Hospitals. For 13 years, from 1953 to 1966, she was a nurse at Hudson Memorial Hospital.
For two years, 1966-68, she was nurse for the Hudson public schools, and for two additional years, 1968-69, worked at the New Richmond Care Center. She retired from nursing in 1976 after four years at Willow Park Care Center in Burkhardt.
Even in retirement she stayed active, serving as a Girl Scout leader and nurse at the Girl Scout Camp in St. Croix County.
She was a member of Bethel Lutheran Church, the Mental Health Association and American Red Cross where she was active in its bloodmobile project. Her other organizations included the American Cancer Society and Ancker Alumni Association.
On Sept. 29, 1951, at Bethel Lutheran Church she was married to John Lund.
Surviving are three daughters, Mrs. Alfredo (Jane) Vega of New Richmond, Mary Lund of 1005 Highway 35 N., Hudson, and Mrs. Robert (Joan) Johnson of Marshfield; four sisters, Mrs. William (Anna) Lester and Mrs. Laura Kinney, both of River Falls, Mrs. Leila Christiansen of Wessington Springs, S.D., and Mrs. Jane Rasmussen of New Richmond; and four grandchildren: Brandon Lund,
Diego, Erick and Stephanie Vega.
Preceeding her in death were her parents; her husband, John, June 2, 1978; two brothers, Olaf and John; and two sisters, Helen Bethel and Janet Jenson.
Interment was in Willow River Cemetery. Pallbearers were Lloyd Garden, James Gilbertson, Michael Guldan, Jack Larsen, Dr. Scott Lucas, Matthew Shubat and Alving Weitkamp.
St.Paul Pioneer Press, 13Mar1989
RUTH LUND, EX-NURSE WHOSE WORK IN ALASKA HAD A LIFELONG IMPACT
Services will be today for Ruth Lund, a retired Hudson, Wis. nurse whose work in Alaska for the U.S. Indian Service had a lifelong impact on her life.
Lund died Friday at Hudson Memorial Hospital after a long illness. She was 73.
"The Alaska tour was for her a major, major part of her life," said Mary Lund of Hudson, one of her daughters. "We have displayed a lot of her Alaskan artifacts at the funeral home because it meant so much to her."
Lund, a graduate of the nursing school at the former Ancker Hospital, now known as St.Paul-Ramsey Medical Center, lived in Alaska from 1944 to 1946 and worked for the Indian Service of the U.S. Interior Department, her daughter said.
"There were few American women in Alaska at that time," the daughter said.
Mary Lund said her mother told her children about the close-knit nature of native Alaskan families and showed them the Indian dolls and carved ivory she received.
Ruth Lund was born in Hudson, and except for her time in Alaska, the Northwest states and Illinois, she lived on her family's farm.
She graduated from Hudson High School in 1935 and attended the University of Wisconsin at River Falls.
She graduated from Ancker Hospital School of Nursing in 1940 and spent two years working at the hospital before heading for the state of Washington and then Alaska.
After he stint in Alaska, Lund spent a year nursing polio patients in Hines, Ill., before returning to Hudson.
She had "retired" to the family farm but was asked to don a nurse's uniform once again during a polio outbreak. She stayed at the hospital until 1955.
From 1955 to 1968, Ruth Lund worked at Hudson Memorial Hospital.Then shebecame a school nurse for the Hudson Public Schools in 1968 and 1969.
She joined the New Richmond, Wis. Health Care Center in 1969 and worked there until illness forced her to quit in 1970. She resumed her career in 1971 at the Willow Park Care Facility, from which she finally retired in 1976.
She stayed active even in retirement, serving as a Girl Scout leader and making quilts for Bethel Lutheran Church. She also "adopted" children from the area who needed someone to watch over them, her daughter said.
Ruth Lund married her husband, John, in 1951. He died in 1978.
Hudson Star-Observer, 13Aug1992
LUND FAMILY ESTABLISHES MEMORAIL SCHOLARSHIP
The family of the late Ruth Lund recently donated more than $1,600 to the Hudsom Memorial Health Foundation for the establishment of a sustaining scholarship for nurses at Hudson Medical Center.
Lund, who died March 10, 1989, was a nurse for more than 40 years. She wrked at HMC from 1955 to 1964. She also worked for the Hudson school system, the New Richmond Care Center, at Willow Park Care Center in Burkhardt and with the Red Cross.
The scholarship is to help defray expenses incurred by nurses to be certified or recertified in the American Heart Association's Advanced Cardiac Life Support.
Ruth began to write the story of her life before her death that Jane Vega shared with me for this family account. It appears to be a first draft and ends about 1957 or 1958.
I was born June 15, 1915 in Hudson township out at Uncle Jens' farm below Bushes' Hill. Mrs. Bush delivered me because Dad couldn't find Dr. Ford. So I was never registered in the Courthouse even though Dr. Ford came later and put drops in my eyes. Bushes and Alexanders were real good neighbors.
Aunt Ida took me to Roberts church. Dad was gone a lot. Dad got the flu in 1918.
We lived on the farm out there until the fall of 1918 when we moved to a house two miles north of down town Hudson on 35. Neither the dog (Shep) or I liked the new home. We wanted to go home and started out-- the dog kept going but I was brought back. He was caught in a trap and died out there.
This house hand't been lived in except by bums so when Dad started a fire in our wood heater the bed bugs came crawling out from under the wall paper in the living room. I remember one room had dark purple wall paper with big green cabbages. The yard was full of great oak trees. We used to lie in the long grass and watch the clouds float overhead and chase and catch fireflies in the
evening. And swimming all summer.
There were four bedrooms in the house but my Aunt Ingaborg and Uncle Ted and their two children lived up here in two rooms. After they moved to Cannon Falls there was a bit more room for the six of us.
In 1918 on February 24th, the twins were born so they shared my mother's room. Some uncle or cousin always lived with us. Henry Jenson, dad's cousin,lived with us many years after the war. The triplets, Jane, Janet and John were born in 1924.
We also had a wood cutter, Charlie MaPark and a hired man who probably worked for room and board. They all shared Ole's bedroom. Later Anne and Helen shared a bedroom and Laura, Leila and I shared another. For a time Louise, Aunt Ida's daughter, lived with us too. Aunt Ida and her new husband both died of the flu at Ancker Hospital in St. Paul. Later Louise was adopted by Westerheims, Mom's cousin.
For awhile Uncle Olaf and Aunt Olga lived with us with their three children. Owen was my age, Hendrietta older, about Ann's age, and Norman who was the twins age. We called the twins and Norman triplets, "mean, meaner and meanest". Later Uncle Olaf moved to Whitefish, Montana where he got a job on the repair crew of the Great Northern Railroad.
My dad was a mail carrier and he drive his long route with horses. His route was so long he picked up a fresh horse at Furgers; also a bowl of hot soup in the winter. In the spring he drove with a very high buggy with a rumble seat in which he kept the mail. Sometimes the water that crossed the road was so deep he could only see the horses backs. He sat up high and put the mail on the seat bench beside him so it wouldn't get wet. When it was nice weather in the summer he would sometimes stop in Burkhardt where he left the Burkhardt mail and we got a cone and some white or pink peppermint or spearmint candies with crosses on one side. That was a real special treat for us. Later we got a "car" of sorts and we'd put the mail in the boxes dor Dad.
I started school in North Hudson when I was six years old. I was much taller and bigger than my classmates so the teacher, Miss Gamble, moved me three times until I got a seat that fit. So I came home and said "I'm as smart as Helen (the brain) 'cause I'm already in the third grade."
The triplets were born when I was nine.
My third grade teacher was Helen Padden. My next teacher was Lethea Pason and my sixth and seventh grade was Russel Erastus Nelson.
I went to Confirmation class at Bethel Lutheran church.
I went to Hudson to eighth grade and Kate Ryan for a teacher. She had taught my Dad, my aunt Karine, Ole, Ann and Helen so she'd start out at the beginning and go down the list and call my name. Sometimes she'd even include the triplets names too. I often had answered the question she had asked before she got ready calling off the list of names.
I started high school in the same building. Helen and I walked to school together. We took turns breaking a trail in the snow. We had lots of teachers then--Dorothy Alden, Miss Lee, Mr. Cook, Miss Edith Hanson, Mrs. King (I was in her home room all four years), Mr. Bargen, Miss Francis Kidd, Mr. Weatherhead, Helen Hughes and many others whose names escape me.
I graduated June 3, 1933, the year I became 18. I went back to working for Krattleys for whom I had worked summers and Saturdays since I was nine years old because Mrs. Krattley and Mary were ill and Martina needed help so I was sent. I worked for Martina til I was 19. [Margaritha Krattley and her daughter, Mary, both died in 1932.]
Then I went to River Falls State Teachers College. We drove every day with Al Linder, Mary Dorwin, George Mullen and Frank Siriani. We had snow banks so high we couldn't see the farms. The only day we were late was May 2nd when we had a very heavy wet snow storm and we got to school at 2 o'clock. I only went to River Falls for two years because that was all the training a country school teacher needed.
Then I started working at Burkhardt for Burkhardt's, the people who owned the mill. My next job was at the Hotel for Smiths, then I started to work at Ray Millers who had seven children. They lived in Hudson on 7th street next to my grandparent's home. Salary $2.50 a week.
Eileen broke her leg then and Ole needed someone so I went to hayward where Ole taught school. They lived on a second floor and Eileen could not do steps for a while.
After I came home I started to work for Lindermans who lived north of us on a farm. I could sleep late, 4:30 a.m., and worked until 8 or 9 at night. There I got $3 a week. It was still Depression.
My next job was a Clymers where I worked for $4 a week. They lived in town on 4th street. I used to get up at 4 a.m. and go fishing with Otis and Teddy. We'd walk out to Trout Brook and fish. It was a lot easier work there and kind of fun.
I left Clymers in 1937 to go into nurse training. Leila also went with me. It was a dreadfully hot summer and fall. We had patients in the hall lying on rubber sheets and covered with a sheet and they were sprinkled with water to try to cool them down--some temps up to 105 or 106 degrees. Many older people died.
We spent our first months in training going to the University of Minnesota where he had classes with the doctors or would-be doctors. We rode by bus daily to the U.
After we had our basic training we started on duty--washing bed pans, passing wash water and cleaning thermometers and false teeth. One of my class mates cleaned all the teeth at once and got them mixed up so we had to run around to find to whom they belonged--this was on the men's ward so most of the men just laughed.
We started working on the medical floors where we took turns--a week on the bed pan cart. We got very attached to our patients because they were returnees so often. After three hard, long years and many funny, peculiar and sad experiences, I graduated in October 1940. While I was at St. Peter for my Psyc training I pulled the ligaments in my right leg so I was hospitalized for a month so I finished later than my class mates. It was lonesome without my close friends.
When I came back to Ancher Hospital as a graduate our older nurses were called to the Army so we got to be supervisors real suddenly. I was A.M. or P.M. (alternating) supervisor of Contagious under Miss Birgit Tofte. Betty Engleman was the other day or evening supervisor. We had many contagious diseases then--polio, meningethis, dyptheria, whooping cough, chicken pox and measles were some of them. I worked on Contagious till the fall of 1941 when I went to Deconess Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. There was a shortage of nurses up there and an old neighbor of mine worked there and asked me to come there.
I was working there when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. There was a cry for nurses in the Indian Service and Army. I couldn't get in the Army so I went to Alaska to Bethel in the Indian Hospital. We had a near escape when one engine of the plane didn't start. The pilot deplaned us and most of our luggage and went around the mountain and was pulled into the Gastanan Channel and was drowned along with our luggage. Fortunately I had taken my duffel bag off the plane with me so I could work at the Indian Hospital in Juneau until we got our luggage back again. Of course what we got back wasn't much good. It was water soaked and a mess. After a short stay in Juneau I went by plane to Bethel. It was not too cold in Juneau but when we deplaned in Northway it was -40 degrees but it felt warmer there because it was a still dry cold. I didn't have any winter gear--just shoes and rubbers and a winter coat. I was carrying my coat because it felt so warm until they told me that it was -40.
We went on to Fairbanks where I stayed in the Hotel until there was flying weather and a plane out of Fairbanks to Bethel. I met a real nice old lady who had married a miner, Jessica Mather. She was from England. We stayed friends until her death in 1952. Fairbanks was an interesting city. I met people from all over the world including Russian fliers who came in after planes from the U.S., also sourdoughs, miners, writers, poets, artists--Jessica knew everybody.
Finally the weather cleared up and I went to Bethel. To clear the fog from the run way they ran cars and trucks across the runways.
It was late February when I got to Bethel. The flight was beautiful and sunny but we went through a thick layer of clouds into snowy, cold, damp weather. They called in inversion.
I was met at the airport by an Eskimo driver who could understand very little English. He insisted I go to the Road House. I said, "No, hospital". After a long argument he took me to the hospital which seemed to be miles out of Bethel.
I was met by Dr. Langsarn, Miss Mills, Ann Gillis and a nurse from the south (who took pills of all kinds) and Esther Trodahl, a sister of the missionaries in town, Ann Miller, the traveling nurse and the old former traveling nurse who remained my nemises as long as I was in Bethel.
Then came Miss Hanson--it wasn't an addition--she was our head nurse. She was a tattle tale to the Doctor and jealous that we had fun together--the other nurses and I. So she tried to get us in trouble all the time. She was peculiar--she talked to herself in the BR--first as a woman and then as a man answering herself. She was a yes man who made our lives miserable.
I left Bethel in July 1945. Mom and Dad and Laura met met at the depot. My first trips to St. Paul was on V-J Day. The streets of the city were lined with people shouting and running. It was a scary situation for someone who hadn't seen anything move faster than our old hospital truck or jeeps or dog sleds. I wanted to go back to Bethel.
My next job with the Indian Service was near Salem, Oregon at the Chemawa Indian School. It was beautiful country, different than any I'd ever been in. Jane and Laura both came to Salem, Jane as a lab tec and Laura worked at the Indian School. While I was in Salem I helped get a Lutheran Free Church started. We got a pretty good congregation started by door to door visits. Pastor Bob and Gloria Krueger were our good friends.
After the war the nurses who had left Chemawa came back and I was transferred to Tacoma to the Indian Hospital there. After I was there a couple weeks the head nurse had a heart attack and left and I was head nurse. It was rough but I survived. I was in charge of a large TB ward.
I stayed in Tacoma til Dad became sick from a severe heart attack. Then I transferred to Hayward Indian Hospital in Wisconsin. Dad died in August of '47. I stayed at Hayward for a while so I could come home and help Mom on my days off. Aunt Clara moved in with her. So after a while I left Hayward as Mom didn't need me.
I went to Chicago and got a job at Hines, Ill. at the Hines Veterans Hospital. It was near Oak Park, Ill. While at Hines I met Steve Pedi and his wonderful family. It made my life away from home a joy. I had a new family.
I worked at Hines, Ill. until May 1951 when I came home to be with Mom for a while. In May I met John Lund whom Mom knew through uncle Teddy and from __rland Church. He brought Ted up to see Mom and then went on to Siren to deliver lumber for his brother Axel.
During the summer Doris Wells came to stay with me. I knew her from Tacoma hospital. John kept returning often with Ted and more lumber and I thought he liked Doris who was a beautiful Indian girl. He was always so good to her. One day he asked me to go for a ride with him and he proposed. After the summer, on September 29th, we were married at Bethel Church in Hudson. Jane Jenson and Orlando Benson were our attendents. John tried to make a match between Jane and Orlando his friend.
After John and I were married Mom moved to Spooner and had a home built where she and Jane lived. Jane had gone through nurse training after her stretch in the Womans Air Corps so she worked at the Spooner hospital.
John and I were buying the farm so we lived here. When the polio epidemic ran rampant in St. Paul I went back to work on Contagious again. I rode in every day and caught a bus to Ancker from down town St. Paul. I worked there until April of 1953. I also had a garden where I raised glads to sell (18 rows of glads) to the florist.
Jane was born May 8th at Ancker Hospital where I worked. After Jane was born I stayed home and cooked and baked and enjoyed home and a new baby.
I stayed home and then John was layed off from the shops so he stayed home and baby sat and I went to work at Miller Hospital in St. Paul in February of '54 where I met and made lots of friends. Mary was born November 19th. Then I stayed home with my two babies until the Hudson Hospital opened and Dr. Bourget asked me to come to work part time. Ruby Benson babysat til one of us got home.
I started to work part time nights. John worked at Sommers and afternoons and evenings at the hospital as janitor or in maintenance. I worked at Hudson until before Joie was born [Feburary 1, 1957]. I specialed the nite before she was born and then went to take care of Mrs. Gartmann and then went home and started in labor. I went to the hospital early in the a.m. and Joie was born in the bed as the delivery room was busy.
After Joie was born I stayed home for a while. Meantime I specialed for Dr. Anderson's heart patients.
In the fall when Sommers left for the winter John just worked afternoons at the hospital so he was home when I wasn't. I worked four nights a week at the hospital.
Then the school asked Joan Richie and I to be school nurses. I used to help Mrs. Hope when she needed me.
Here Ruth's story ends. We know that she spent two years as a school nurse in Hudson before going to work at Health Center in New Richmond. She retired in 1976 after four years at the Willow Park Care Center in Burkhardt. In retirement she stayed active, serving as a Girl Scout leader and nurse at the Girl Scout Camp.
HSO, 7Jan1943, p5, c3
Miss Ruth Jenson, R.N., left on Monday eve, for St. Paul, where she has followed her profession of nursing, since coming from Michigan, and where he co-workers at The Anchor, gave her a farewell party. Miss Jenson left on Tuesday for Bethel, Alaska, where she has signed up for Civil Service, and will follow her profession. Miss Jenson is a Hudson High School graduate and well and very favorably known in Hudson, where her hundreds of friends and relatives wish her luck and God speed in her new life. She expects to stop off at Whitefish, Montana to visit her sister, Jane, and uncle, Olaf Jenson and daughter, enroute.
HSO, 11Feb1943, p5
The address of Miss Ruth Jenson, R.N., is in care of the Indian Nursing Service, Bethel, Alaska.
HSO, 29 Nov 1945, Willy's column
Indians . . .
Miss Ruth Jenson, the registered nurse daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Nels Jenson, Jr., is now employed with the Indian Service at Chimawa, Oregon. Miss Jenson, prior to her present assignment, spent considerable time in Alaska working with the Eskimos.
Hudson Star Observer, 16Mar1989
Ruth Hallanger (Jenson) Lund, 73, of 1005 Highway 35 N., a nurse for nearly 40 years, died Friday, March 10, at Hudson Memorial Hospital.
She was born June 15, 1915, in Hudson, the daughter of Nels O.J. and Gurina (Hallanger) Jenson.
In 1933 she graduated from Hudson High School, after which she attended River Falls State Normal (now UW-River Falls) for two years. She later went to the University of Minnesota while attending Ancker Hospital School of Nursing in St. Paul, from which she graduated in 1940.
She spent two years nursing at Ancker Hospital.
After leaving Ancker Hospital, she was employed from 1942-43 at St. Peter Hospital in Hines, Ill., and from 1943-45 at Washington State Indian Service in Tacoma.
From 1945 to 1948 she lived in Alaska, working for the Indian Service of the U.S. Department of Interior. According to family members, her sojourn in Alaska was one of the highlights of her life and often spoke of it endearingly.
After returning from Alaska, she found employment in St. Paul from 1948-1953 at Ancker and Miller Hospitals. For 13 years, from 1953 to 1966, she was a nurse at Hudson Memorial Hospital.
For two years, 1966-68, she was nurse for the Hudson public schools, and for two additional years, 1968-69, worked at the New Richmond Care Center. She retired from nursing in 1976 after four years at Willow Park Care Center in Burkhardt.
Even in retirement she stayed active, serving as a Girl Scout leader and nurse at the Girl Scout Camp in St. Croix County.
She was a member of Bethel Lutheran Church, the Mental Health Association and American Red Cross where she was active in its bloodmobile project. Her other organizations included the American Cancer Society and Ancker Alumni Association.
On Sept. 29, 1951, at Bethel Lutheran Church she was married to John Lund.
Surviving are three daughters, Mrs. Alfredo (Jane) Vega of New Richmond, Mary Lund of 1005 Highway 35 N., Hudson, and Mrs. Robert (Joan) Johnson of Marshfield; four sisters, Mrs. William (Anna) Lester and Mrs. Laura Kinney, both of River Falls, Mrs. Leila Christiansen of Wessington Springs, S.D., and Mrs. Jane Rasmussen of New Richmond; and four grandchildren: Brandon Lund,
Diego, Erick and Stephanie Vega.
Preceeding her in death were her parents; her husband, John, June 2, 1978; two brothers, Olaf and John; and two sisters, Helen Bethel and Janet Jenson.
Interment was in Willow River Cemetery. Pallbearers were Lloyd Garden, James Gilbertson, Michael Guldan, Jack Larsen, Dr. Scott Lucas, Matthew Shubat and Alving Weitkamp.
St.Paul Pioneer Press, 13Mar1989
RUTH LUND, EX-NURSE WHOSE WORK IN ALASKA HAD A LIFELONG IMPACT
Services will be today for Ruth Lund, a retired Hudson, Wis. nurse whose work in Alaska for the U.S. Indian Service had a lifelong impact on her life.
Lund died Friday at Hudson Memorial Hospital after a long illness. She was 73.
"The Alaska tour was for her a major, major part of her life," said Mary Lund of Hudson, one of her daughters. "We have displayed a lot of her Alaskan artifacts at the funeral home because it meant so much to her."
Lund, a graduate of the nursing school at the former Ancker Hospital, now known as St.Paul-Ramsey Medical Center, lived in Alaska from 1944 to 1946 and worked for the Indian Service of the U.S. Interior Department, her daughter said.
"There were few American women in Alaska at that time," the daughter said.
Mary Lund said her mother told her children about the close-knit nature of native Alaskan families and showed them the Indian dolls and carved ivory she received.
Ruth Lund was born in Hudson, and except for her time in Alaska, the Northwest states and Illinois, she lived on her family's farm.
She graduated from Hudson High School in 1935 and attended the University of Wisconsin at River Falls.
She graduated from Ancker Hospital School of Nursing in 1940 and spent two years working at the hospital before heading for the state of Washington and then Alaska.
After he stint in Alaska, Lund spent a year nursing polio patients in Hines, Ill., before returning to Hudson.
She had "retired" to the family farm but was asked to don a nurse's uniform once again during a polio outbreak. She stayed at the hospital until 1955.
From 1955 to 1968, Ruth Lund worked at Hudson Memorial Hospital.Then shebecame a school nurse for the Hudson Public Schools in 1968 and 1969.
She joined the New Richmond, Wis. Health Care Center in 1969 and worked there until illness forced her to quit in 1970. She resumed her career in 1971 at the Willow Park Care Facility, from which she finally retired in 1976.
She stayed active even in retirement, serving as a Girl Scout leader and making quilts for Bethel Lutheran Church. She also "adopted" children from the area who needed someone to watch over them, her daughter said.
Ruth Lund married her husband, John, in 1951. He died in 1978.
Hudson Star-Observer, 13Aug1992
LUND FAMILY ESTABLISHES MEMORAIL SCHOLARSHIP
The family of the late Ruth Lund recently donated more than $1,600 to the Hudsom Memorial Health Foundation for the establishment of a sustaining scholarship for nurses at Hudson Medical Center.
Lund, who died March 10, 1989, was a nurse for more than 40 years. She wrked at HMC from 1955 to 1964. She also worked for the Hudson school system, the New Richmond Care Center, at Willow Park Care Center in Burkhardt and with the Red Cross.
The scholarship is to help defray expenses incurred by nurses to be certified or recertified in the American Heart Association's Advanced Cardiac Life Support.
Events
| Birth | 15 Jun 1915 | Hudson, St. Croix County, Wisconsin | |||
| Graduation | 1933 | Hudson High School - Hudson, St. Croix, Wis |  | ||
| Marriage | 29 Sep 1951 | Hudson, St. Croix County, Wisconsin, Bethel Luth. - John Alvin Lund | | ||
| Death | 10 Mar 1989 | Hudson, St. Croix County, Wisconsin | | ||
| Burial | 13 Mar 1989 | Hudson, St. Croix County, Wisconsin, WIllow River |
Families
| Spouse | John Alvin Lund ( - 1978) |
| Child | Jane Anne Lund |
| Child | Mary Gwen Lund (1954 - 1993) |
| Child | Joan Ruth "Joey" Lund |
| Father | Nels Johan Jenson (1886 - 1947) |
| Mother | Gurina Hallanger (1883 - 1968) |
| Sibling | Olaf John "Ole" Jenson (1907 - 1974) |
| Sibling | Anna Katherine Jenson (1909 - ) |
| Sibling | Helen Margaret Jenson (1913 - ) |
| Sibling | Leila Jensina Jenson (1918 - 1999) |
| Sibling | Laura Jenson (1918 - 1998) |
| Sibling | Jane Mary Jenson (1924 - 2007) |
| Sibling | Janet Ida Jenson (1924 - ) |
| Sibling | John Robert Jenson (1924 - 1980) |
Endnotes
1. Miller, Willis H. and Benoy, Marian Thorson, Hudson High School Alumni Directory Star-Observer Publishing Co., Hudson, Wis., 1973, p26.
2. Hudson Star-Observer, Hudson, Wis., 15 Jun 1978, p7, Obituary, John A. Lund.
3. U.S. Social Security Death Index .