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Mary Ellen Smith: An Advocate for Public Health

When Mary Ellen Smith speaks of her 27-year career as a public health nurse in Door County, it is clear that few people have influenced her as greatly as her younger brother Tom.

And for good reason — stricken with polio as a toddler just six months before the arrival of the vaccine that would provide immunity from the deadly infectious disease, Tom faced it with undying strength even as it diminished his mobility. It was a strength he would carry with him for life, going on to have a family of his own and achieve a career as a computer engineer.

But in those early days, the impressionable six-year-old Smith saw the pain and struggle her brother faced. She also saw the care that helped alleviate Tom’s pain and give him a fair shot at life.

“Growing up back then, kids stayed in the hospital much longer than they do today so I met nurses and nurses took care of my brother,” Smith said. “And I liked them, so that’s why I wanted to become a nurse.”

In 1970 she did, earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Marquette University, where she also met her future husband, Greg Smith. For a year, she worked the orthopedic and neurological floors at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee before she and Greg married and returned to his homeland of Door County in 1971.

Her first step toward public health nursing in the county would happen after a chance meeting with Carol Pflieger, then a public health nurse, in the checkout line of the old Piggly Wiggly in 1976.

“Back then home care and public health were together, and the home care nurses needed help,” Smith recalled. “And she wondered if I wanted to work a couple days a week and I said I probably do.”

Home care nurses visited patients in their homes, providing everything from new diagnosis education to dressing changes. Helping people achieve independence was a point of pride for Smith, who from a young age watched her brother adapt to his own disability.

“I loved doing home care and it certainly made a person think about, when I was a hospital nurse, you sent people home and nobody went to their house to see how they were going to manage,” Smith said.

She continued on that path, temporarily leaving her county job in 1980 to work for Porter-Kiehnau Home Care until 1988. During that time, Smith periodically filled in for county public health nurses on maternity leave and became familiar with the ins and outs of community health.

In 1988, she was hired as a part-time public health nurse for Door County and in the early 2000s, became full time. It marked the beginning of a career that has touched all aspects of public health, from adult health to communicable disease control, health education and improvement, emergency preparedness, environmental health and immunizations.

Smith instantly became a strong advocate for public health issues, making her mark on the collaborative efforts that helped establish a free/sliding-fee scale primary care clinic that has since spawned a free dental clinic (Ministry Door County Medical Center Dental Clinic), Hispanic Resource Center of Door and Kewaunee Counties, and the Community Clinic of Door County.

But closest to her heart is her work in maternal and child health.

“If I hadn’t moved to Door County, I would have wanted to work on a pediatric floor of a hospital,” Smith said. “I just like kids. I like working with the young moms, helping them be the best moms they can be.”

Her current drive in that area comes through two new initiatives:  the Door County Community Partnership for Children and Families, and Cradle to Career. Door County Community Partnership for Children and Families focuses on bolstering school readiness skills in area youth, while Cradle to Career focuses on providing education opportunities for young pregnant women.

“I think a lot of people would be surprised at the number of young women who don’t have a high school education. That’s a new initiative where we’re really hoping to make sure everybody has their GED/HSED and then some additional education,” Smith said. “She, in turn, has that education herself and sees the importance of education for the children.”

As if her involvement in those clinics wasn’t enough, she also makes time to serve on a Breastfeeding Support Group for Door County families, oral health committee, Prevent Suicide Door County Coalition, Northeastern Wisconsin Child Death Review Team, and the Door County Advisory Board for Family Services.

These commitments were among those cited in Public Health Department Director Rhonda Kolberg’s letter to the Wisconsin Public Health Association this year, nominating Smith for the prestigious Distinguished Service in Public Health Nursing: Cornelia van Kooy Award.

“My job would not have been the same without her here and I was just lucky that she was working here,” Kolberg said. “She’s a real advocate for public health, especially women’s and children’s issues. She’s been a very loyal person.”

The award is named for Cornelia van Kooy, known as the “Mother of Public Health Nursing” in Wisconsin, whose life draws uncanny parallels to the woman who would ultimately receive the award on August 5, 2015: Mary Ellen Smith.

For one, van Kooy was a Milwaukee native who attended St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing, which would later merge with Trinity Hospital Training School for Nursing to become Marquette University College of Nursing, Smith’s alma mater.

“But the really interesting thing about Cornelia is they hired her in Door County as the first nurse,” Smith said. “She was hired as a visiting nurse 100 years ago.”

According to a July 14, 1916, article in the Door County Democrat, van Kooy was hired as a visiting nurse by the Sturgeon Bay Board of Education and the Woman’s Club. “Miss Kooy will supervise the health of the children attending school and will look after their physical welfare in every respect,” the article read.

“It’s a tremendous honor to get an award named for a nurse who did so many different things,” Smith said. “Those nurses were pioneers. Nursing wasn’t looked upon as the greatest profession back then, either, so they were really something.”

Since word spread that Smith was given the award, Kolberg points out that anywhere the public health nurse goes, she is met with stories of people whose lives she impacted.

“She’s met people in the community that, years later, have said, ‘You really helped me. I needed someone to support me and you were there. It made a big difference for me,’” Kolberg said. “These people have gone onto school, they’ve been successful, and I think it says a lot about her and what she’s done for a lot of people.”

However, Smith is quick to point out that she did not receive the award in a vacuum, crediting the support she’s received from colleagues and the health department’s directors and, of course, her brother Tom.

“My brother died unexpectedly August 6, 2015, the day after I got the award,” Smith said. “And I had told him prior to going to get the award that I felt it was for him. Our family, we are the people we are today because of him. He was just the most admirable person. Tom never complained, which is literally unbelievable because his life was hard.

“My life has certainly been influenced by my brother and his acceptance of his disability,” she continued. “Going on and making the most of life.”

Mary Ellen Smith lives in Sturgeon Bay with her husband, Greg.