Carole Mullen
Catalog Number: 2001.010.006
Like so many others in the health care field, Helen Hanson was deeply committed to her work.
This nurse’s uniform that once belonged to her dates from 1934, the beginning of her work as La Crosse County Health Department nurse.
Helen’s uniform consisted of a calf-length navy blue cotton dress with snapped cuffs and a buttoned collar, a white belt, and pocket kerchief, and a long white apron. The outfit was manufactured by Hopkins Public Health Uniforms of Baltimore, Maryland.
Helen was born in La Crosse in 1906 and graduated from La Crosse High School in 1924. She became records librarian at St. Francis Hospital (now Mayo Clinic Health System) from 1925-1927.
Helen completed her nurse’s training through St. Francis School of Nursing (now part of Viterbo University). When she graduated in 1930, all of her teachers were Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
The consensus of Helen and her nursing classmates was that the nuns were good teachers, strict but fair. Reminiscing in a 1981 La Crosse Tribune interview, the retired nurses remembered living at Siena Hall, with lights out at 9:30 p.m. “It was kind of hard to eat fudge with the lights out,” Helen quipped in the article.
The nursing curriculum included both academic and hospital training. Hospital care was less specialized in those days, Helen remembered. “In the hospital we were assigned five or six patients each morning. We took complete care of them. We gave them their breakfast. We took their temperature and pulse. We gave them their medication. We bathed them. If they needed to be taken to a different department for special therapy, we took them. We really got to know each patient. And when the patient was all taken care of, we dusted the room.”
The newly graduated nursing class struggled to find work in the bleak economic conditions of 1930. Many worked in private homes. Helen was able to return as records librarian for St. Francis Hospital until 1934, then was appointed La Crosse County Public Health nurse. She would continue in that position for 37 years.
As a county nurse, Helen Hanson had to deal with diseases uncommon today — whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, tuberculosis, smallpox and polio.
She visited rural schools throughout the county, giving immunizations and educating schoolchildren on health. She taught Red Cross home nursing, accident prevention, and first aid. She was active in nurses’ organizations and was chairman of the local Red Cross disaster committee during the big flood in La Crosse in 1965. Even after retirement in 1971, Helen Hanson found ways to give to the community.
A 1974 La Crosse Tribune article highlighted her involvement with an annual Christmas party for children who were orthopedic patients. Helen had been helping to organize the party since 1938. “We always go all out for these children,” she said. “There’s a Santa Claus and a Christmas tree with gifts under it from stores in La Crosse. Many times some of the children are in the program.”
Remembering her years as county nurse, she added, “As a county nurse I was always interested in the welfare of the children. I was always observing for children with problems who needed help. I always tried to see that they were given care when they needed it, whether they can afford it or not.”
After a lifetime of service to the area, Helen Hanson died in 2002 at age 95. She was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in La Crosse.
This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on April 25, 2020.
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