A Legacy of Care and Connection with Claudia Wilson

Welcome back to our Seminole Snapshots series! In this series, we highlight photographic collections or photographers who have captured pivotal moments in Seminole history, tourism, industry, or culture. In the past we have explored some incredible collections. From the Boehmer Collection, The Don and Gladys Marks Collection, Seminole Christmases, and more.

This week, we will look at the collection of photographs, documents, letters, and clippings gathered throughout the career of Claudia Wilson. Wilson was a nurse in Clewiston from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. She served the Seminole Tribe of Florida during a time of great transformative change in healthcare and health access. Her collection shows a unique lens into Seminole life at the time. It also documents some incredible shifts in Seminole healthcare.

It is important to note that Seminoles and many other Indigenous peoples have a complicated history with the Western medical complex and intervention. For the purposes of this blog post, we will be focusing particularly on Claudia Wilson and her role in Seminole healthcare, and not the complicated history that comes with white-administered healthcare to Indigenous communities.

In our featured image, you can see Claudia Wilson and two young girls in front of the Big Cypress Clinic.

 

Life as A Public Health Nurse…

Claudia Wilson was born in 1917 in Grand Island Florida. A dedicated nurse, she and her family moved to Clewiston in 1947. Although the Seminole Tribe has overseen their own healthcare management for decades now, prior to 1971 the Florida Division of Health oversaw healthcare. A group of doctors, nurses, and health professionals employed by the state would travel between the reservations providing preventative care, treating ailments, and addressing health needs. Claudia was one of these health professionals.

Wilson began her career with the Hendry and Glades County Health Department in 1958, working under then chief nurse Margaret Morgan. Wilson and Morgan oversaw the health needs of both counties, and in the beginning were the only two public health nurses in the two rural counties (2018.21.31, ATTK Museum). They implemented programs for prenatal care, school health screenings, immunizations, and preventative care.

 

…With the Seminole Tribe

In 1960, the United Southeastern Tribes contacted the state, and the state assigned Claudia Wilson to serve as the nurse for the entire Big Cypress Reservation. The state assigned her to the Brighton Reservation as well a few years later. Claudia Wilson dedicated the next eleven years to providing healthcare within the Seminole Tribe, until officials eliminated the role in 1971.

In a newspaper article included in her collection which detailed her career, it notes that Wilson became not only a nurse, but also a friend, helper, and cherished community member (2018.21.31, ATTK Museum). She worked to learn their language and did her best to respect tribal customs and medicine men. In return, the community welcomed her, and she attended weddings, obtained fishing and hunting licenses, and made friends.

Above, Claudia Wilson holds two babies. They both wear patchwork dresses and hats. The baby on the right is crying and grabbing Claudia’s nose.

 

A Transitional Period

The time in which Claudia served the Seminole Tribe was one of great transition in healthcare. In a 2021 Seminole Tribune article about Claudia and her collection, her role and active engagement within the community is detailed. Specifically in the 1960s and early 1970s, there were huge medical breakthroughs nationwide, which Claudia was tasked with bringing to the Seminole community. Some of these breakthroughs included “the polio vaccine [being developed] and made available for commercial use, electrocardiograms (EKGs) [becoming] more widespread, and birth control pills were approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Being a nurse with the Florida Division of Health, Claudia was instrumental in bringing these services to the Seminole community she served.”

Claudia greatly influenced the Seminole Tribe’s healthcare during those formative years as they navigated operating as a federally recognized tribe. Her “medical notes and records were included in reports by the Indian Health Program of the U.S. Public Health Service, as well as medical reports conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.” She would receive the Florida Public Health Association Meritorious Service Award in recognition in part for her work with the Seminoles in 1978.

 

Her Impact on Reservation

At the height of her duties, Claudia ran clinics on both Big Cypress and Brighton and held clinic days twice a week. On her clinic days, Claudia was busy. She “provided regular health checkups, gave vaccines and booster shots, administered family planning and prenatal services, performed tuberculin testing, and checked children’s vision and hearing for school health programs. She also took part in fitness and weight loss clubs that were formed on the reservations. Additionally, she assisted with the implementation of the cardiac screening program in Hendry and Glades counties, which was made available to tribal members living in those areas.”

Although the introduction of Western medicine had its benefits and drawbacks, at the core Claudia worked for the people of the Seminole Tribe and focused on serving them the best way she knew how.

Above, Mary Tigertail receives a typhoid booster shot at the Big Cypress Clinic in 1964. In the accompanying article, it notes that Mary Tigertail and a number of other teenagers at the time were part of the “Doodlebug” softball team. Three of them wore their brand-new white softball tee-shirts to the clinic day: Mary Tigertail, Minnie Tigertail, and Mary Cypress. Claudia Wilson “had volunteered to see that the name of their softball team was painted on the back of each.”

 

Explore the Collection

Claudia Wilson passed away at the age of 99 in 2017, after a long and incredible life. Following her passing, Wilson’s family donated her collection of letters, documents, ephemera, photographs, and more to the Clewiston Museum for preservation. In 2018, the Clewiston Museum contacted the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum, and the collection was transferred to them. For the next few years, the Museum’s collections team diligently catalogued, scanned, and preserved the almost 900 artifacts, finally completing the project in summer 2021. The resulting collection gives an unique and rare look into healthcare for the Seminole Tribe during this transitional period, where they were not only contending with medical breakthroughs, but also the transition to a federally recognized tribe.

Many pieces from the Claudia Wilson Collection are available online through the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum. We encourage you to take some time to explore this interesting and fascinating facet of the Museum Collection!

 

The Photos

Claudia Wilson integrated herself and her family into the community over the course of her career. Above, you can see an annual fishing permit signed by Chairman Billy Osceola. The permit allowed Claudia Wilson and her family to fish on Brighton and Big Cypress Reservations and was valid from November 15, 1966 to November 14, 1967.

 

In addition to the many photographs, letters, and clippings Wilson also saved a number of medical ephemera related to her role. Above, you can see this medical script from Dr. Steve R. Johnston to Noah Jim, Buffalo Jim, and Herman Osceola. The prescription is for wild cherry, and it is dated January 14, 1966. Claudia’s husband, Parker, was a pharmacist in Clewiston.

 

Above, you can see a color photograph of two Seminole princesses, one is posing with a bouquet of roses. There is a tree and buildings in the background

 

Four women and a child sit on a platform under a chickee, most likely in a Seminole camp. There are handwritten notes on the back of the photo commenting on the quality of the picture, see attached image.

 

A man and woman standing by a “Rock-ola” juke box machine. Two children are sitting in front of the machine. They are standing in front of a window in a room with a tiled floor.

 

A woman wearing a patchwork skirt receiving a shot from a man in a lab coat. There are other people in the background. Exact location and date unknown. The doctor uses a jet injector, a device the CDC often used in the 1960s during mass vaccination programs to combat diseases like smallpox and polio.The jet injector used pressurized air to administer vaccines, instead of a needle.

 

Lottie Shore and Leonna Smith wearing patchwork skirts and standing in front of 1960’s cars parked on grass.

 

Nurse Claudia Wilson giving Betty Tigertail a shot on the Big Cypress Reservation.

 

Claudia Wilson talking to children from Big Cypress. Two are sitting on a sink counter. Through a doorway on the left, shelves of medicine can be seen. Exact location and date unknown.

 

Handwritten note to Claudia Wilson regarding birth control pills. The note reads “Mrs. Wilson, Would you please send me some birth control pills. I can’t come in to get them so can you drop them off at the house. Thank you”

 

Black and white photograph of a woman in a patchwork skirt and a young boy. They are seated in a medical clinic and there is an eye examination chart on the wall behind them. The boy is looking at the camera; the woman is smiling and appears to be looking at someone in front of her.

 

Interested in more of our Seminole Snapshots series? Previously, we have also looked at the works of Julian Dimock, Irvin M. Peithmann, John Kunkel Small, JJ Steinmetz, W. Stanley Hanson Sr., Ethel Cutler Freeman, and Deaconess Bedell.

 

Author Bio

Originally from Washington state, Deanna Butler received her BA in Archaeological Sciences from the University of Washington in 2014. Deanna moved to Florida in 2016. Soon, she began working for the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office. Deanna was the THPO’s Archaeological Collections Assistant from 2017-2021. While at the THPO, Deanna worked to preserve, support, and process the Tribe’s archaeological collection. She often wrote the popular Artifact of the Month series and worked on many community and educational outreach programs. She lives in Lakeland, FL with her husband, two sons, and dog.