WLM | arts
PIONEER Women
By Kati Hime
Cover image courtesy Denice Wheeler
I
t is always with enthusiasm that
I pick up a Denice Wheeler
book, as I know I will be learning
something new when I am through.
An Evanston resident, her book coauthored with Lila Bond – The Lonely
Life – was featured in our Winter
2012-13 issue. A look into the life of
sheepherders (particularly Basque
and their heritage) was fascinating.
A recent trip that took our family
through Kemmerer on the way to Star
Valley afforded us the opportunity to
see several sheepherders at work. The
nuggets of information retained from
the book made for some interesting
conversation! That’s when you know
a book is truly good – it stays with
you.
In one of my many lives I am a
diagnostic medical sonographer and
vascular technologist. I’ve worked
in hospitals, surgical centers and
currently in outpatient clinics, and
feel very blessed to be able to work
with Wyoming patients around our
work with WLM. I’ve worked with
men and women in my field, and
honestly I’ve worked with more male
physicians than female, particularly in
the field of radiology. So it was with a
great deal of interest that I dove into
Denice’s book, Pioneer Women Midwives,
Doctors and Healers when it arrived in
my mailbox.
Denice has a special pull to the topic –
her mother was nursed back to health
by a midwife shortly after Denice was
born, when the family had been told to prepare for the worst. The story of Denice’s
mother’s miraculous recovery was the buzz of the small Utah town she was born in,
and led to a lifetime of fascination in the art of healing for Denice.
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Wyoming Lifestyle Magazine | Summer 2015