Page 9 - Wallingford Magazine Issue 53 Early Spring 2025
P. 9

listings, she in Goshen and Cornwall during the same time
      frame. In 1922 Seneca was superintendent of Insilco Facto-
      ry P, and Carrie was working as Town Health Officer in West
      Cornwall. It appeared they were living independently. How-
      ever, toward the end of Carrie’s life, they may have reunited;
      Seneca  retired  from  the  silver  industry  in  Wallingford  and
      moved to Cornwall, as listed in the 1924 City Directory.    Dr. North’s Prescription for Morphine

      Returning to Goshen: 1917-1925                           who had died 7 months previously and later by her mother
      Around 1917 Carrie and two-year-old Howard left Walling-  who died in 1943.
      ford and relocated to Litchfield County. Back home with her
      parents she continued to practice medicine and was appoint-  Howard eventually returned to Wallingford where he mar-
      ed Town Health Officer for Goshen, the first woman to hold   ried and raised a family at 33 Grandview Ave. Seneca died in
      this office in Connecticut. Later she assumed the same role   1926 and was buried next to his first wife in the In Memoriam
      for the town of West Cornwall.                           Cemetery.

      World War I began two years after Howard was born and    Postscript
      continued through the rest of Carrie’s tenure in Wallingford.   Now as I continue my work in the archives, I glance up at
      After the United States entered the War on April 6, 1917, she   that old doctor’s bag and imagine a young woman, dressed
      joined the Medical Services Department of the Connecticut   something like the woman shown here, carrying her brand
      State  Medical  Society.  One  of  her  duties  was  to  interview   new crocodile bag containing the most current medical in-
                          women for the Land Army (modeled     struments and medicines, walking briskly down South Main
                                       after  the  British  orga-  Street, on her way to care for a ailing patient.
                                        nization  of  the  same
                                         name),  using  similar   Notes
                                         standards as in the ex-  Thanks to my pharmacist friend Cindy Welchek who provided
                                         amination of soldiers.   me with helpful information.
                                         The  women,  some-
                                         times  called  Farmer-  If any of our readers should ever come across a photograph
                                         ettes  or  Land  Girls,   of Carrie North, I’d love to see it.
                                         were  assigned  to
                                         farms  whose  work-
                                         ers  were  serving  in
                                          the  armed  forces.
                                          Mostly  middle  and
                                          upper  class,  these
                                          women  had  never
                                          farmed  before,  but
                                          were willing to learn
                                          for the greater good
                                          of  their  country.
                                          The committee also
                                          provided  services
                                           for  widows  and
      Stimpson’s Pharmacy Record Book      children of soldiers.

      In September 1918 Dr. Stevens reported on the status of the
      Town of Goshen’s health, “As in the past our sanitary condi-
      tion is good. May it continue. Situated as we are among the
      hills, nature does her part for us, let us do ours by keeping
      scrupulously clean. Swat the fly, keep our yards and stables
      clean,  kill  the  mosquito  and  our  report  can  but  continue
      good.” Advice that is still useful today.
      Death of Carrie North Stevens: 1925
      Newspaper articles comment on Carrie’s popularity and ded-
      ication to her patients. Sadly, that dedication was the ulti-
      mate cause of her death. She had been attending a young
      boy with tonsillitis around the clock. When he began to im-
      prove, she returned home, tired and ill herself. Days later, on
      July 23, 1925, at the age of only 51, Carrie died from what we
      now know was a Streptococcus bacterial infection and highly
      contagious, contracted due to her proximity to that little boy.
      She was buried in Goshen Center Cemetery with her father


        WallingfordMag.com                                                                                        9
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