Miss Munsey / International Women’s Day. In 1915, Doylestown’s VIA (Village Improvement Association) determined that the health care needs of the community could be met by a visiting nurse who would attend to ill or injured residents instead of sending them elsewhere for care.
The VIA worked with the Red Cross to engage Clementine Johnson, who made 62 visits during her first three weeks of employment. She developed a working relationship with the physicians and druggists, began visits to schools, and initiated an advertising campaign. Miss Johnson left her position in December 1916 to join the Army Medical Corps. Her successor was Eva Smythe, who established a permanent site for health education in the public school building. In 1917 Miss Smythe also left to join the war effort.
Then came Miss Munsey. Norma Munsey (1890-1954) was born in Beverly, MA. She graduated as a nurse in 1912 from Salem Hospital in Salem, MA and moved to Doylestown, renting a room at 79 E. Ashland St. She started as a visiting nurse for the VIA in October 1917, arriving at the start of the influenza epidemic, and made 741 visits during one of the first months on the job. In 1919 the VIA opened two fully equipped rooms to care for patients who could not be cared for in their homes.
Miss Munsey and Dr. Frank Swartzlander held clinics in these rooms at 77 N. Broad St, the precursor of the Doylestown Emergency Hospital. Known for riding her bicycle to visit patients, Miss Munsey would toss candy to children as they played to foster good will and encourage health education. Once, she sponsored a “Fly Crusade” in the township schools, offering prizes for the most houseflies killed.
Miss Munsey left visiting nursing to be married in the summer of 1923. She became a social worker for Bucks County at the Neshaminy Manor Home, retiring in 1952. Norma Munsey Leatherman died in March 1954 and is buried beside her husband, Robert, in the Doylestown Cemetery. Recognizing the historic importance of nursing in the community and the origins of the Doylestown Hospital, the Doylestown Historical Society Museum currently presents an exhibit featuring the local impact of Miss Munsey and nurses like her.
Photo is a recreation. Text compiled by Pat Witek, of the Doylestown Historical Society, from the following sources:
• Biggs, Anne, Through Their Eyes: A Story of Doylestown Hospital, Doylestown Hospital, 1998.
• “Rights Held Today for Visiting Nurse Founder,” Doylestown Daily Intelligencer, 5 March 1954.
• Spence, J. Kurt, History of 24 South Church Street, Doylestown Historical Society, 2020.
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