Dorothy Klick, aging in place

At 95, Dorothy Klick is a prime example of aging in place with grace and wisdom. Having spent more years in Long Prairie, Minn., than anywhere else, she's still active and involved. She participated in the visioning session at the start of Todd County's Healthy Community Partnership, giving her perspective on what aging in Todd County can be.

Since selling her house several years ago, she lives alone in a spacious ground-level apartment close to her church and community activities. Though macular degeneration is robbing her eyesight, she's been proactive even regarding that, taking classes for the blind. Family and friends are close by if she needs assistance.

Born in Minneapolis in 1915, Dorothy was one of four sisters who all became nurses. In the 1930s, at the height of the great depression, it's a wonder that all four were able to seek higher education. While Dorothy's sister, Rose, headed into the skies as a stewardess with Northwest Airlines, Dorothy kicked her adventurous heels and joined the army. "We had no brothers and my mother, being foreign born, felt as though our family, too, should be represented," she says of her own army enlistment.

Dorothy's family moved to Long Prairie, where she graduated from high school. She earned her nursing degree from St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, which had the distinction of being the first hospital in the state. Graduating in 1938, Dorothy benefited from the school's nursing residence, which had been built in 1926 and housed the 200-plus nursing students. Documents show that in 1935, 6,000 patients were treated in the hospital while more than 24,000 lab tests and 2,000 X-rays were performed. From these rich clinical experiences and well equipped hospital settings, Dorothy went on to work as a surgical nurse for four years and then spent one year in industrial nursing.

After enlisting in 1943, Dorothy was transported to her first assigned station to find fields of mud, half finished buildings, and limited equipment. Her job, as chief surgical nurse, was to not only teach inexperienced young men to act as surgical technicians, but to also oversee the making of all linens and dressings, supervise the cleaning crew, as well as order and maintain $90,000 worth of equipment for the surgical units.

The next year, Dorothy set sail on the six-day trip that took her to England to work in a general hospital. Arriving at Ludgershal, her group was taken to a camp which had been used by British paratroopers. "It was filthy! Without rest, food, or sleep, we scrubbed the walls, floors, beds, etc. using our own soap and towels as rags. We had to procure and cut our own kindling, coal, coke, and carry out ashes," she remembers.

Living with unheated bathrooms, poor sewage disposal, no hospital laundry facilities and lack of water, the nurses worked 14-20 hour days and managed to save lives. In her first month in England, Dorothy's crew handled 600 operations and 126 blood transfusions.

But Dorothy says it wasn't all work. "We had 1½ days off a month." Dorothy and her friends saved bus fare by walking a mile and a half into town and used the money for entertainment instead. She traveled to London, Bath, Oxford and other parts of England and Scotland. She tasted England's famous fish and chips, enjoyed the beautiful countryside, the thatched houses and many chimneys.

She notes that late summer of 1944 was the busiest month in the hospital. "From 10 August to 10 September there were 700 surgery cases." Between August 7 of 1944 and June 8 of 1945, Dorothy documented 7,501 hospital admissions.

Dorothy spent a year in England and then served in Alabama and Iowa. She received the American Campaign Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal and WWII Victory Medal I Overseas Bar. She was discharged on February 18, 1946.

On returning to civilian life, Dorothy married Florian Klick, a dentist who had also served in the military. They had five sons. She served as the president of the Auxiliary to the Minnesota State Dental Association for eight years, organized the local hospital auxiliary and reorganized the county public health service, working as the director and home health coordinator.

Dorothy has given 83 years of volunteer service to her community and church. Though a recipient of many honors and awards for her varied activities, she still doesn't rest on her laurels, continuing to assist with historical society events and filling needs that arise. The largest nod to her contribution to the war effort is the inclusion of her image on the mural in the Veteran's Memorial Park in Long Prairie. A surprise to her, "I was completely speechless," she says, when the painting was revealed.

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A video interview with Dorothy is part of the veteran's oral history project of the Historical Museum of East Ottertail County in Perham.

Photo: As Don Hickman explained the visioning session process, Dorothy Klick and Leo Heinze looked on, at right.

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