Partner Freda Caffin
Queer Places:
Frontier Nursing University, 195 School St, Hyden, KY 41749
Santa Cruz Memorial Park
Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, California, USA
Edna C. Rockstroh (1899 - February 27, 1982) was a public health nurse for 47 years in Europe and the United States. Rockstroh and her future companion Freda Caffin worked at the Maternity Center Association in New York City before pursuing their midwifery education in England.
For many years she worked for the Frontier Nursing Service in Leslie County, Va., founded by Mary Carson Breckinridge, riding out daily on horseback to care for Appalachian families. Mary Carson Breckinridge returned to the U.S. in 1925 and on May 28 of that year founded the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, which soon became the Frontier Nursing Service, which provided general health care, vaccinations, pre/post natal care, and birth services. She was joined by two midwives she met in London, Edna Rockstroh and Freda Caffin.[1]:498 Mary Breckinridge, her father Colonel Breckinridge (took care of the horses), nurses Edna, Freda set up the first nurses clinic in 1925 and lived together in Hyden.
A native of New York, Rockstroh lived in California since 1927 and in Santa Cruz since 1963, living with Freda Caffin. She is survived by three nephews. S.J. Rockstroh of Summit. N J , and Richard L. Rockstroh and W A. Rockstroh, both of England, and by her many friends in Santa Cruz. Services are pending at White's & Wessendorf Chapel. 1.18 Walnut Ave Interment will be in the IOOF Cemeterv.
In 1937 she went to California, where she pursued her career in camps for migratory workers. She was a school nurse for the San Rafael School District for 15 years. John Steinbeck, gathering information for his novel of the Depression, ''The Grapes of Wrath,'' asked permission at that time to accompany Rockstroh on her rounds. She declined the request because, she said, the migrants, whose confidence she had won, did not care to be written about.
She died on February 27, 1982, at her home in Santa Cruz, Calif. She was 83 years old.
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