A Great Woman …
A Great Story
By Jerry Johnson
and the Sutton Historical Society
“A
Great Woman … A Great Story” is an appropriate and fitting tribute to perhaps
Sutton’s most famous daughter and is presented in a three and a half minute
video on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcVqOcMUtsM
- a
tribute to Dr. Madeleine Leininger.
 |
| Dr. Madeleine Leininger of Sutton |
Dr.
Leininger has been recognized locally a number of times in articles and
tributes but the story of her career does not grow old.
“He
made a difference in the world.” Have you ever heard that said about an
individual? Did that person really make a difference? In the world?
We’d
all like to think that we made some difference during our brief stay on the
planet and on certain scales, we all do. But not many of us truly do something
that alters the world for untold thousands and thousands of people. We have at
least one Suttonite who did just that.
The
Sutton High class of ’42 was a large class for our town, fifty-eight graduates
in the early months of a world war. The boys faced an immediate responsibility
to “make a difference” on the stages of the Pacific Theater and the European
Theater of WWII. One grad made the ultimate sacrifice in a tank battle on the
western front near the borders between Germany, France and Switzerland.
Many
scattered across the country making their marks from coast to coast. One fellow
went on to become an executive at Temple University. Others stayed close to
their roots becoming standout citizens of our local community. But the ‘42 grad
of this story did truly make an indelible mark on the world.
Madeleine
Leininger was born July 13, 1925 to George and Irene Leininger on the farm
south of Sutton though the video mentioned above gives her birth as 1920. After
graduation from Sutton High she was in the U. S. Army Nursing Corps while
pursuing a basic nursing program. She received her nursing diploma from St.
Anthony’s School of Nursing in Denver, a B. S. from St.Scholastica (Benedictine
College) in Atchinson, Kansas, her M. S. psychiatric and mental health nursing
from Catholic University in D. C. and a Ph.D. in cultural and social
anthropology from the University of Washington. She was the first person in a
graduate nursing program to receive a Ph.D. – quite a distinction. Her official
certifications read: PhD, LHD, DS, CTN, RN, FAAN, FRCNA – I’ll not elaborate.
Dr.
Leininger’s broad academic background led her to blend her two fields study,
nursing and anthropology to create a new discipline, transcultural nursing.
She
was working in a child guidance home in the 1950’s when she realized that
behavior patterns in children appeared to have a cultural basis. She spent
three years in Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea on a field research
project with the Gatsup people. There she came to realize that nurses and other
health care personnel were handicapped in their attempts to provide health care
if they did not understand the culture and history of health care of their patients.
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| Dr. Leininger visited and studied more than a dozen cultures world-wide. |
Madeleine
studied a number of diverse societies while formulating her then-radical ideas
about the nature of nursing. Those ideas coalesced into her Theory of
Transcultural Nursing defining an entirely new professional sector of nursing
and health care practice.
Dr.
Leininger was able to instill her ideas into formal educational programs as she
attained leadership positions in the field at the University of Cincinnati, the
University of Colorado and as Dean, Professor of Nursing and Lecturer of Anthropology
at the University of Washington. It was under her leadership that the
University of Washington was recognized in 1973 as the outstanding public
institution of nursing in the country. Her resume must have been suitable for
framing.
Her
academic career continued at the University of Utah where her collection of
titles included Director of the Doctoral and Transcultural Nursing Program.
The
theory and principles of transcultural nursing were quickly ingrained into
nurses training throughout the world as the list of her professional writings
grew to include over 200 articles and book chapters, more than 25 of her own
books and edited works, 850 public lectures and numerous audio and video
presentations. She managed to work in stints as visiting professor and scholar
at about 70 universities around the world – her various biographies seem unable
to keep up with and agree on the “gee-whiz” statistics of Dr. Leininger’s
career.
 |
| Dr. Leininger with a group of Gadsup children on a return trip to Papua New Guinea probably in 1990. |
She
settled down, as best she could in 1981 at Wayne State University in Detroit
where she accumulated another list of academic and professional titles. She
retired as professor emeritus from Wayne State University in 1995.
Every
formal field of study needs its definitive publication for exchange of ideas
and to establish standards and methods. Dr. Leininger accommodated with the
founding of the Journal of Transcultural Nursing in 1989 and served as its
editor until 1995. The publication recognized their Foundress shortly after her
death by reprinting (unfortunately, as a single paragraph!) an article from
2009: http://www.tcns.org/Foundress.html
The
Madeleine Leininger Collection constitutes 15.5 linear feet of her papers in
the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State. The thirty-three pages of the
“Finding Aid” of the collection are at: https://www.reuther.wayne.edu/files/WSP000725.pdf and is worth
your time to get a feel for the important work of this Sutton girl. Prepare to
be overwhelmed. Other collections of her works are at Florida Atlantic
University, Boston University and Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan.
I’ve
provided a few of the dozens of internet links concerning Dr. Leininger. I’m pretty
sure no other Suttonite generated as much academic and professional material. But
I must include two more of those links. A detailed and lengthy account of her
work is at: http://nursingtheories.blogspot.com/2011/07/leiningers-theory-of-culture-care.html and an
entertaining youtube video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHsfevWnW10&feature=related
is
rather clever, if a bit hokey with a skit apparently done by enthusiastic
nursing students including an appearance by Madeleine as Mary Poppins. Yes,
really.
Did
growing up in Sutton have any unique or direct influences that may have led to
Dr. Leininger’s success? We probably shouldn’t make such a claim without
specific justification. But there is a hint in the 1940 census of where an
important influence may have come from. Madeleine was 14 at the time of that
census. Her sister Eulalia was 17 and listed as a “public school teacher.”
School documents for that fall list Eulalia as a second-year teacher in
District #38, the Rock School six a half miles south of Sutton.
We
can imagine how a sister but three years older and already teaching school
might have had an impact on Madeleine. Leininger family stories confirm
Eulalia’s influence including her encouragement and help in sending Madeleine
off to begin her education and the career that became “A Great Story about A
Great Woman”.
Dr.
Madeleine Leininger died on August 10, 2012 and is buried in Sutton’s Calvary
Cemetery.
This article first appeared in the November 2012 issue of Sutton Life Magazine. (No longer in publication)
UPDATE: March 2019
This news item appeared in The Clay County News on March 20, 1969
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