"Swishing." Wilma Nicholson, who is school nurse in addition to many other titles, visits the Seeley Lake Elementary School regularly to see that children "swish" with fluoride. Wilma has been honored by the Seeley Lake Area Chamber of Commerce as the 1987 Citizen of the Year.
Anne Phipps and baby Jonathan.
In celebration of 35 years of the Seeley Swan Pathfinder, each week we will run parts of articles that appeared in the issue 35 years ago and 20 years ago. The entire issue will be uploaded to our website seeleylake.com for you to enjoy. We hope you will enjoy the journey with us as we follow our community through the past 35 years as documented by the Pathfinder.
35 years ago: May 7, 1987 issue
Wilma - Our Florence Nightingale
Story/photo Suzanne Vernon
Sixteen years ago, when Wilma Nicholson first began her work as a community health nurse in Seeley Lake, Virginia Kenyon, Chief Nurse of the Public Health Nurses in Montana told her, "See that this community gets a doctor. See that they get a decent ambulance service and see that they get a clinic."
"I did what they told me to do - with help from all of the people here," Wilma said, in her confident, matter-of-fact voice. "It has been one of the few projects that the entire community really supported, from Ovando to Swan Valley."
Wilma is quick to point out that, although she has often been the moving force behind various community health projects, none of them would have been successful without the volunteer efforts of dozens of other local residents.
Wilma has been a registered nurse since 1946, when she graduated from Providence School of Nursing at Seattle University. Those were the war years and things were going pretty fast, she recalls. She worked at a medical center in Jersey City, New Jersey soon after graduation but later returned to her home state, Montana, to complete training in coronary care and intensive care. She then taught nursing at Butte's Vocational Technical Center before accepting the Community Health Nurse position at Seeley Lake.
She began her work here in 1971. Elsie Toavs-Dyk initiated the Seeley-Ovando-Swan (SOS) health care project in September of 1970. Wilma arrived in June of 1971 to start her practice as a Community Health Nurse, working out of...
To read more of this article and the rest of the issue visit seeleylake.com/home/customer_files/article_documents/1987-05-07.pdf
35 years ago: May 7, 1987 issue
QRU delivers first baby
The night of April 23, 1987 Jonathan was born in his family home north of Seeley Lake. Seeley Lake Quick Response Unit members Chris Anders, Cindy Lewis, Cheri Thompson, Bonnie Connell, Steve Thompson and Jack Thomas assisted with Jonathan's birth. It was the first time this team had ever helped deliver a baby. For the rest of the story and more visit seeleylake.com/home/customer_files/article_documents/1987-05-07.pdf
20 years ago: May 9, 2002 issue
Restoration planned for Homestead Cabin
The Homestead Cabin on the Double Arrow Ranch is one of the oldest building still standing in the Seeley Lake Area. Bert and Dagmar Sperry, pioneers of this area, lived in the cabin southeast of Seeley Lake. They were the aunt and uncle of Butch Sperry Townsend, who still resides in Seeley Lake. It was approximately built in the early 1920’s and moved to Double Arrow in the late 1970’s.
Although repairs have been made periodically, it is in dire need of restoration at this time.
The Double Arrow Ranch Land Owners Association (DARLOA) has been planning on ways to fund this project for some time. Beginning this venture will be a pancake breakfast on Saturday, May 11 at 8:30 a.m. This will be followed by a program presented by Don Wood on forestry and fire safety. Come and enjoy the pancakes prepared by Colin Moon. They are good...
To read more of this article and more from this issue visit https://www.seeleylake.com/home/customer_files/article_documents/2002-05-09.pdf
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