Page 9 - Wallingford Magazine Issue 53 Early Spring 2025
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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
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