Contributed by Richard Estelle, Palmer Museum of History & Art
“When Bigger & Better Babies Are Had, Our Hospital Will Have Them!! See Dr. Albrecht!!!? So proclaimed the sign on the side of the “Storkmobile” in Palmer’s 1937 Independence Day parade.
The Valley’s new hospital had been open less than two years and the staff was justly proud of the new residents who began their lives there. Hospital nurses took an opportunity to advertise that fact to Palmer residents during the community 4th of July parade.
Dr. C. Earl Albrecht and a couple of nurses came to Palmer from the Alaska Railroad hospital in Anchorage soon after the colonists arrived in 1935 to get control of an outbreak of serious illness spreading among the area’s children. The doctor would remain in Palmer, overseeing medical care for the Valley’s population, for many years.
This month’s photo shows three hospital nurses, each holding a bundled new arrival, with Dr. Albrecht conducting an inspection. They’re standing in front of the hospital’s ambulance, also known as the “Nurses Car” since nurses were apparently the ones who drove it the most for both business and off-duty outings from time to time. Dubbed for the occasion as the “Storkmobile”, with a large papiermache stork delivering a newborn in its beak mounted as a hood ornament, and a boastful sign on the side, it took its prominent place in the parade to remind the crowd where the Matanuska Valley’s best babies come from!
Our photo comes from the collection of Elsie Havens Blue, seen in the photo as the nurse standing next to Dr. Albrecht. Elsie served as the hospital operating room nurse during her time in Palmer from 1937 to 1940.