A Doctor among the Oglala Sioux Tribe: The Letters of Robert H. Ruby, 1953-1954

Sixteen. November 1954

Sixteen. November 1954 Mr. Reifel called Dr. Quint to ask him if three days was enough for him to take off to spend in New York redoing a part of his boards. He said yes. Then Mr. Reifel asked him if it was okay to put it in the newssheet. That is the first time I know of that he has asked anyone if he could put something in the newssheet.Dr.Quint said he didn’t think that Mr.Reifel should use the same wording as before: that Dr. Quint was away, and his wife and child were staying home alone. Mr. Reifel said, “Yes, I wonder if anyone will ever take their vengeance out on my wife when they know I’m gone and she is home alone.” November 1, 1954 I leave tomorrow evening or Wednesday morning for Aberdeen for the Area Medical-Dental conference. When I get back, I have three days, and then I will be off again for Atlantic City for the American College of Surgeons convention. The old Indian custom for waving is to raise two arms in the air, not just one, as is the white man’s custom. Indian children play with all sorts of animals. Long ago they used to run down skunks.After the skunks were skinned, the skunk fat was cooked, boiled, skimmed from the top when the water cooled, and that was put aside for colds. A teaspoon of skunk oil was enough to cure anything, I guess, from what the old timers say about the taste. I see by a note from the Area Office that the central office has arranged for the transfer of a female patient from San Haven to the Sioux Sanitarium . San Haven is way up in North Dakota. The woman has written 314 both me and Mr. Reifel to get us to transfer her. Of course, the reason we didn’t is that every time this woman gets to the Sioux Sanitarium, she runs out of there. She is loaded with tuberculosis. Really there are times when the central office ought to mind its own business. There have been so many people who left the Sioux Sanitarium against medical advice, many failing to keep appointments, people not picking up their family from the hospital,and whatnot that my memos have been hot and heavy. The best that ever happened was one I sent to Moses Schindelbower about one patient. Mr. Schindelbower took it personally, or else he was on the defensive, or perhaps he is paranoid, maybe even has a persecution complex. He is the teacher at Porcupine. Anyway, he wrote a note saying he couldn’t figure out why I was reprimanding him. I asked Mr. Reifel about it since he had seen a copy of the correspondence. He said,“We sure have a lot of thin-skinned people around here.” I asked Mr. Pyles how he took it, and he viewed the letter as just for information. That is what it was intended for. Mercy! Another case dumped on us.A mental case and a bum from Julesburg, Colorado. The sheriff from that place brought the man up here. He has been away from the reservation for ten years. People think that just because people are Indians that we should come and get them and care for them when they’ve been away from here for ten years. The guy is really a bum. He drinks constantly, and that, I think, is the basis of his mental deterioration. He left his wife and kids ten years ago and wouldn’t support them. Aggie Iron Cloud made an observation that I share. All the young nurses we have are cheerful. They come in and eat and work and leave and have a good time. But all the older, longtime unmarried, old-maid nurses are always“bitching”about something from the food to everything on the floors. And it sure is a fact. Miss Golden, who came here in August from Rosebud, went back again Saturday.She was to have been able to stay here,but Miss Pawluk, whom I don’t know yet, is to return. She had military leave to go to the army for seventeen months.I sure hated to see Miss Golden leave.(This November 1954 315 is not Miss Holden. Miss Golden replaced Miss Holden when she left in July.) I don’t care...