Wilma Carlton
Temple, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Wilma Carlton was born in Columbus, Texas, on September 25, 1882, the first child of Mississippi natives Senie Needham and Thomas Jefferson Carlton. The family settled in the Pin Oak area of Milam County by 1880 and grew to include three more daughters and a son. Her father, whose original surname may have been Davidson, worked as a farmer, a bailiff in the county sheriff's office and a rail car inspector. He was killed by another railroad employee in 1899. Her mother moved to Cameron and operated a boarding house there. Wilma, 17 at the time of her father's death, left Texas to attend the Union Benevolent Association Training School, an early, acclaimed nursing school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 1904, Carlton graduated from her training, which was based on Florence Nightingale's renowned example. That same year, Drs. Arthur Carroll Scott and Raleigh R. White, Jr. established their Temple sanatarium and a supporting nurses training program. In 1905, they hired Wilma Carlton as the program superintendent. She oversaw the teachers,courses and schedules for the nurses in training, and was the liaison between them and the hospital's physicians. She was also known for her compassionate bedside manner and her embodiment of Florence Nightingale's teachings. During her 17-year career in Temple, Carlton served as a statewide leader in nursing, working toward licensing standards. Active in the Red Cross, she was a member of national and state professional groups,such as the Texas Graduate Nurses' Association, which she served for two terms as president. Carlton became ill in September 1922 and died on December 27 of that year at the age of 40. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Columbus, Texas, in 1882, Wilma Carlton lost her father to violence when she was seventeen and left the state to train at a Grand Rapids nursing school modeled on Florence Nightingale's methods. Graduating in 1904, she was hired the next year as superintendent of the new nurses' training program at Drs. Scott and White's Temple sanatarium, overseeing teachers, courses, and schedules. Over a seventeen-year career she became a statewide nursing leader, serving twice as president of the Texas Graduate Nurses' Association before her death in 1922.
Why it matters
Carlton's career reflects the rise of professional nursing in early-twentieth-century America and the women who built its training standards and institutions.
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Related people
- · Wilma Carlton
- · Arthur Carroll Scott
- · Raleigh R. White, Jr.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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