3/14/2010:
North Dakotan Marion Hagberg was a nurse, through and through. She was trained in and practiced nursing in several states. She even met her future husband, Walter Moen, when he hired her for a job as a nursing supervisor.
With all of her experiences, she had many stories to tell, and one was reported in newspapers on this date in 1946. While serving in the nurse corps during World War II, Hagberg met a celebrity: First Frost, one of Japanese Emperor Hirohito's famed white horses. American Lt. Dick Ryan, who had received the horse as a gift for hosting a rodeo in Tokyo, brought the horse to the shore hospital she was working at, to cheer up the wounded soldiers.
And it worked; it was good horse sense.
Dakota Datebook written by Sarah Walker
Sources:
Ellensburg Daily Record, Wednesday, December 12, 1945, p. 1 (Washington)
The Lewiston Daily Sun, November 5, 1945, p. 12
The Ashley Tribune, Thursday, March 14, 1946, p. 2
Toronto Daily Star, November 5, 1945, p. 15
Ramsey County, ND (County History Book) Vol. 2, publ. 1983