KNOTT COUNTY HALL OF FAME

ADALINE HALE

Adaline Hale is remembered and revered for her many years of service as a public
health nurse in Eastern Kentucky.  She began working Perry county in 1936, and
after 13 years there e, served with the Knott County Health Department for 13     
more years, until her retirement in 1971.                                                              

Mrs. Hale relates that she worked in public health when penicillin was discovered
and the health tax was approved.  She, in conjunction with the health department  
and Delta Theta Tau sorority, held large clinics in the Dry Creek and Pippa Passes
areas.  The sorority provided a four-wheel drive vehicle allowing Mrs. Hale to      
travel to many isolated areas to provide health services.                                       

She recalls her nursing cases included major epidemics of typhoid, diphtheria, and tuberculosis, Mrs. Hale often accompanied the sheriff to pick up patients who had tuberculosis and were refusing hospitalization in one of the five state TB hospitals
in existence at the time.                                                                                      

Lydia Adaline Clark Hale was born in Venita, Oklahoma, the daughter of George
and Nannie Clark.  Hr great-grandparents walked the "Trail of Tears" to relocate
the Cherokee tribe to the Oklahoma Territory.  Proud of her Indian heritage, Mrs.
Hale graduated high school at the age of 16 from a U.S. Indian Service School in
Lawrence, Kansas, where she attended two years of junior college as well.  During
the summer of her high school years, she was a waitress in South Dakota when the
Mt. Rushmore monuments were built.                                                                  

After completing junior college, the Colonial Dames of America sent Mrs. hale on   scholarship to the oldest hospital in the U.S., the Pennsylvania School of Nursing in Philadelphia, to obtain her registered nursing degree. She also attended the Frontier
Nursing Services School of Midwifery in Hyden, Ky., where she was  "nurse on   
horseback." It was here that she met her future husband, Zelda D. Hale.              

Mr. Hale, a member of the 1928 basketball team saw Miss Clark on her horse and
told his brother, "I've found the woman I'm going to marry."  So it came to be that  
a young Cherokee nurse from Oklahoma met a young man from Eastern Kentucky
and began their life together marrying in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1936.              

The Hales had three children:  John Hale of Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Joan Enochs of
Hazard; and S.D. Hale, Jr.., of Lexington, three grandchildren and two great-
grandchildren.  After retirement, Mrs. hale nursed her husband, a stroke victim, for
six years until his death.  Since that time, she has lived at her home in Red Fox,
where she gardens, cans and cooks, her favorite hobby.  Mrs. Hale, who is legally
blind, remains independent, keeping abreast of world affairs and providing love and
support to her children.  Sh4e continues to provide consultation to parents about their children's illnesses.  These same parents remember Mrs. Hale giving them "shots" in
school and still respect her opinion on their children's health.  Mrs. hale has served her community well and will be long remembered for her unselfish dedication to providing
health care when Knott County had only two doctors and no primary care center.

 

Corbett Mullins
May 1, 2003