After I took the State Board exam, I was employed by the State Board member who practiced in my home town. Our city had never had a dental hygienist, so I enjoyed being a pioneer. For two years, I served as president of the West Virginia Hygienists’ Association. Then I married my special patient, Marlow Davis, CPA and moved to Pittsburgh, PA. There I loved working as a school dental hygienist in five schools. My main teaching tool was a little furry hand puppet puppy dog. My mentor not only taught dental health to children in the schools, but she created a delightful weekly children’s TV show to spread the work of children’s dental health.
Next, we moved to Phoenix with our two small children. Hygienists were so scarce in Arizona that when I took the State Board exam in1957, I was offered four jobs. I accepted all of them, one day a week in each of the four offices. Two years later, my Tuesday dentist said, “Betsy, I would like you to quit all your other offices and work full time for me.” My reply was, “I can’t do that because I’m going to be a Cub Scout den mother when school starts.” For the next three years I thoroughly enjoyed my Cub Scouts. The following year, I took on the Camp Fire girls. I was their leader for eleven years. They were a joy, too. I do believe that if we balance our lives with other interesting activities, it will in some subtle way, contribute to our staying enthusiastic about our career. I can sincerely say I have enjoyed every office in which I have been employed. I like being a dental hygienist, partly because I enjoy people, and partly because it’s such a worthy cause. We really are making a difference in people’s health and happiness.
When my Monday dentist, with whom I had practiced for twenty four years, retired in1981 he sold his practice and says he sold me, too. So, another one of my blessings is that some of the patients I now treat have been my patients for as long as 51 years. Once a cute little four-year-old bit my finger, then rolled her pretty blue eyes up at me, wondering what I was going to do about it. I ignored it (somewhat painfully.) So, she released her chomp. I saw her just last week, as I do every six months. She is still one of my favorite patients, a lovely, very caring middle-aged lady (who doesn’t bite my fingers any more.)
When I think about the fact that there are hygienists who get burned out so early in their careers, I wonder how I might be helpful. Scheduling the patients too closely could cause it. Also, working too many days a week, not having adequate lunch time or having work days that are too long. Actually, I have had all these situations sometime, but not very often. Sometime within recent years, this illuminating thought occurred to me: A job is not just a job: it is a significant part of one’s life. Wow! I had never before thought of it that way. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could live our lives with no regrets, full-heartedly approaching everything we do with a zestful attitude of gratitude, etc., etc.? Well, we’re all human and no one has a good day every day. But, we can keep striving.
Let me tell you about the most touching experience of my career. One morning, a few years ago, I had an adorable new patient. He was three years old with gorgeous curly red hair. He had just enough baby fat for his hand to be dimpled. He was so cute! His daddy came into the operatory with him and gently said, “OK, Collin, climb up in the chair.” He did so without much hesitation. Then the daddy said, “Now put your head back.” Again little Collin cooperated. This adorable little boy then looked up at me and said, “I don’t want to get hurt. I’m not bad.” Just imagine what someone must have told him! I quickly replied, “Oh, no one ever gets hurt in this chair. We just have fun.” I gave him the mouth mirror to play with and he held it up to his eye. I’ll never forget his happy smile when he saw his eye in that little mirror. I told him all about the instruments and everything. We really had fun. Then I told him that Dr. Patterson would come in and “you can show him your sparkling clean teeth. After that, you get to go to the toy box and pick out a toy to take home and keep.” When Collin came back from the toy box, his daddy was in the chair. He reached his little hand up and patted his daddy’s arm and said, “It’ll be all right, Papa.” When I told Marlow about that, it brought tears to his eyes. The next day, he said, “Tell me that story about Collin again.” Again, there were tears in his eyes.
Now, I am a widow, missing Marlow very much and working 2 days a week. I balance my career with activities with family and friends, piano, gardening and community and church volunteering. Last, but certainly not least, I want to say it is a special pleasure to participate in ASDHA. I have served on the Executive Board 20 years, treasurer for 4 years, historian for 1 year and president of my component for a year. Now, I am enjoying being a delegate from CADHS representing other hygienists. Come join the fun!
Betsy R. Davis, RDH
April 2009
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING—
Dental Hygiene in Arizona
by Betsy R. Davis
The year was 1947. Arizona had just begun licensing dental hygienists. As we research our history, we realize how important it is for us to know where we’ve been, because if we eradicate the past we diminish the meaning of the present and the future.
I hope all hygienists have read “The Origin and History of the Dental Hygienist Movement” which is in Dr. Alfred C. Fones’ book MOUTH HYGIENE. I enjoy re-reading it. It makes me feel grateful for those innovative pioneers in the New England area. Around 1913 they set the course which has led to present day preventive care and professional development — a process which will continue on and on.
Likewise, after learning how dental hygiene got its start in Arizona I am filled with gratitude and admiration for the people who helped pave the way in this state. I consider being an Arizona hygienist a real pleasure. It’s been one of my blessings since 1957.
In the early years, there was no appropriate place for the Arizona State Board of Dental Examiners to give exams. In 1947 they were using Glendale High School. Soon after that, they chose the State Prison in Florence, AZ. This was partly because the prisoners were in such need of dental care. The Board members created “dental units” from straight wooden chairs with attached head rests. There were portable hand pieces which could be plugged into electrical outlets. There were men from Tri-State Dental Supply and Crabtree Dental Supply on hand to help applicants get ready for their patients. Each hygienist had two squeeze-bulb syringes. One for compressed air and one for water which was in a glass. There was a large tin can beside each chair to serve as a cuspidor.
The dentists who were serving on the State Board in the early years of dental hygiene in Arizona were Drs. Bennett, Hamblin, Hicks, Glennie, Trueblood, Pecharich, Pinkerton and Spitalny. Incidentally, Dr. Spitalny and another Phoenix dentist, Dr.Christianson, at about that time, started the Children’s Dental Health Clinic at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where many of us continue to volunteer.
I would like to present a brief biographical sketch of two of our very earliest pioneer hygienists. They are Helen McCall and Ruth Bugbee, both licensed by the Arizona Board in that not-to-be-forgotten first year, 1947.
Helen, the lovely wife of Dr. T. E. McCall is listed on the State Board records as licensee Number One. When she, formerly Helen Adams, finished high school in Minnesota, she decided she did not was to be a teacher, secretary or nurse. So, she wrote to the University of Minnesota and asked what else she might consider. That is how she first learned of dental hygiene as a profession. Two years later, Helen graduated from the University of Minnesota’s School of Dental Hygiene, class of 1935.
In those days, dental hygiene students were taught to polish teeth with a “porte-polisher”, a tool with a metal handle which held a small slightly curved orangewood stick which was dipped into a mixture of fine pumice and water. After Helen was licensed by the Minnesota Board, she was given one lesson, and only one lesson in how to polish teeth using the dental engine. In the office where this young hygienist was first employed, the fee for a dental prophylaxis was two dollars and fifty cents and Helen received a salary of fifteen dollars a week.
During World War II Helen worked in an Army hospital as a civilian. Hygienists in those years had a great sense of pride in the white starched, perfectly ironed uniform, white hosiery, well-polished white shoes and especially the white cap with the purple ribbon. I might add that no one ever sat down to treat a patient. I’m so glad that has changed.
In 1946 Helen traveled to Arizona to visit friends. She decided she would like to live here. She talked with Dr. John Austin who was an advocate for getting our profession launched in this state. The following year she returned because the law had been passed making it possible for dental hygienists to be licensed in Arizona.
Soon Helen was practicing in Dr. Austin’s office in the Professional Building at Central Avenue and Monroe in Phoenix, where most of the local dentists and physicians were located. Another dentist in that building was the young Dr. Thomas E. McCall. Romance blossomed. The delightful couple, Helen and Thomas were married the next year.
In 1949, Dr. McCall got the adventuresome idea of buying a bit of land “way out in the country” on which to build a dental office, later to be known as 115 East Camelback Road. The only major building out that far was St. Francis Xavier Church with the accompanying Brophy Prep School. The patients were “just in a tizzy” about the distance they would have to travel. Incidentally, that’s the year in which Arizona’s “Man of the Year” was Barry Goldwater.
Well, the town grew and so did the McCall family. The McCalls became parents of four children who became a physician, a lawyer and two teachers. One of their daughters-in-law, Jeanne McCall, is a dental hygienist.
Meanwhile in Tucson, there was the innovative and charming Arizona pioneer hygienist, Ruth S. Bugbee, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Hygiene, class of 1922. She and her physician husband had moved here for Dr. Bugbee’s health. During those earliest years Ruth established a dental health program in the Tucson schools. It became a model for many school districts across the country. She spent twenty five years as Senior Dental Hygienist in the Tucson public schools. Of course, in the very early years, she was the entire department. During that time she initiated the slogan, “If you can’t brush after eating, swish and swallow.” Later she had the pleasure of seeing that slogan adopted by the ADA. In later years, Ruth Bugbee and Patricia Poore co-authored the book, TEETH FOR LIFE, a dental health manual to be used by teachers of grades one through six. The book continued to be used extensively.
In 1969 Ruth gave a paper in Rome at the First International Symposium on Dental Health. There have been articles written about her and articles written by her published for and wide. She was president of ASDHA in 1957 and again in 1963. She was Trustee for District XI of ADHA from 1965 to 1967.
Ruth was so greatly admired and appreciated by the dentists in the Tucson area that she was elected Honorary Member of the Southern Arizona Dental Society, the first hygienist in the State to be so honored.
Another interesting note about Ruth is that she is the mother-in-law of the former astronaut, Col. Frank Borman. When the Colonel returned from piloting Gemeni7 in 1965, Ruth asked him if she might have the toothbrush he had carried so she could show it to her students, Well! Everyone wanted to touch it. So she framed the toothbrush and put it under glass to preserve it.
ASDHA’s first logo was designed by Ruth’s son, Frank, industrial engineer in Philadelphia. He incorporated the shining sun over the Saguaro cactus to symbolize the state of Arizona. The three words, SERVICE, DEDICATION AND EDUCATION epitomized the purpose of our professional organization. Of course, the ideas which went into the creation of the logo were conceived by Ruth, then designed by her artist son. The keystone shape of the logo bore a significant message. It’s interesting to note that the definition of a keystone is “ the central, topmost stone of an arch, popularly thought of as especially supporting and holding the others in place.” Perhaps that means that ASDHA has a responsible position for nurturing and helping the components.
Ruth retired and returned to Pennsylvania. Her influence on dental health certainly lives on. Her years of dedicated service reflect one of my favorite quotations: “Our deeds are like pebbles cast into the pool of time. Though they themselves may disappear, their ripples extend to eternity.”
ASDHA was born in 1953. This was largely due to the efforts of Mary Whayne Habeich, Novella Hancock, Barbara Kolinovsky, Elisabeth McInnes, Marilyn Ronstadt, Marcia Brandt, Betty Reeves, Ruth Bugbee and her daughter Susan Borman. Mary and Novella were the Phoenix hygienists who were eager to get the State Association started. They made repeated trips to meet with the Tucson hygienists who had the same hopes. Soon this small group of determined hygienists proudly became a constituent of ADHA.
The first president was Mary Whayne Habeich, followed by Barbara Kolinovsky, Lorraine Carlson, Ethel Retzer, Ruth Bugbee and Carol Theilke Werkmeister. Other licensees of those first ten years were Ann Woodall, Mary Moss, Beverly Deathridge Norma DeMarco, Dorothy McClelland, Ruth Rosenberg, Suzanne Barrett, Jayne Hamlin, Joyce Jones, Beth Hill, Mary Ann Shipley, Margaret Biesemeyer, Mary Ann Green, Mary DeBel, Patricia Fisher, Adelyn Posner, Marilyn McMillan, and Phyllis Baker.
In doing this research, the eldest dental hygienist I was privileged to talk with was the delightful eighty-three-year-old Alice Mulligan who came to Arizona in 1953 and now lives in Phoenix. She is a dynamic lady who became a hygienist in Minnesota in 1925. She is the mother of ten children, one of whom is the popular Phoenix orthodontist, Dr. Tom Mulligan.
I hope you have enjoyed learning these bits of early history as much as I have enjoyed researching them for you. In looking through boxes and boxes of papers I found an old ASDHA newsletter called IN YOUR HANDS in which Joan Sallomi had quoted, “A measure of what is grown can only equal what is sown.”
So, from all of us who were not here to help launch our profession in Arizona, to all of you diligent workers who were, THANK YOU, PIONEERS, FOR ALL OF YOUR SOWING!
Betsy R. Davis, RDH
ASDHA Historian, 1985-86