4/15/2005:
Doctor Herbert Wilson was born in Bethel, Vermont, on this date in 1921. Wilson was a physician at Fort Berthold for 43 years before retiring nine years ago.
Of his self-dedication, Dr. Wilson says he was a product of his times. His college education was interrupted by World War II, which turned his life in a new direction. “I was in the Air Force,” he says, “on B24s as navigator, gunner, etc. After my tour of duty, I married a WAAF and had 5 years of GI bill that could be paying for my education. I decided on medical school as the most noble thing I might do after causing so much destruction with the heavy bombardment of the Eighth Air Force.” Wilson said he felt constantly drawn to dedication and purpose because of the war. “How could someone forget all those appeals to loyalty after Pearl Harbor?” he asks.
Upon completing his “government-subsidized education,” Wilson was ordered to serve one year on the Fort Berthold Reservation. Dr. Wilson remembers he and his family arriving in Elbowoods “on a hot August day in 1951. We were fresh out of training,” he says, “after a year in Tampa, Florida, treating Merchant Marine sailors.”
The people of Fort Berthold were undergoing a major upheaval with the pending loss of their homes and rich bottomlands to the Garrison Dam and its subsequent reservoir, Lake Sacagawea. The Elbowoods Hospital had been closed, and people were being urged to use an innovative “off-reservation care program.” But, many people had turned back to traditional medicine. Babies were being born at home; lacerations were filled with sage rather than being sutured, and tuberculosis was a significant problem. “In my first year, two infants came down with tubercular meningitis,” he says. “One survived; one succumbed.”
Many of the people stayed in their homes beyond the time the Corps of Engineers had ordered them to get out. “It was so hard to leave!” Wilson says. “And where to? Some were moved family by family, or by small community, onto property up ‘on top’ – to lands most of them had never even visited before.” Some moved to the nearest towns: Garrison, Parshall and New Town.
Some also had accepted the Corp’s plan to go far, far away. It was all arranged for them. An anthropologist was sent from Chicago to plan transport, procurement of housing and even help with job-hunting in their new city. But, says Wilson, many of these eventually returned to the vicinity of their flooded reservation.
There was a lot of unrest in the early years; much of the doctor’s practice consisted of setting broken bones and treating cuts and bruises. “Divorce was frequent,” he says. “Drinking was unrestrained. Records point to about five suicides a year. There was no rebellion; most of their frustration was vented in carousing and internal violence.”
When his year was up, Wilson realized his patients were more restless and troubled than ever. The Wilsons decided to stay and also opened a part-time, private, practice for non-Indians who were experiencing the same problems.
Their second year led to a third, a third to a fourth, and finally, forty-three years after the move to the Missouri River bottomlands, it was time for a rest. Finding it difficult to slow down their pace, the Wilsons retired in a more urban setting – Bismarck, where Dr. Wilson is hopefully enjoying a very nice birthday today.
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm