One of 10 children, Minnie King was born April 4, 1912, in Talladega County, Alabama. With so many mouths to feed, money was scarce in the King household and Minnie knew obtaining a higher education would be difficult. When she heard she could enroll at Touro Infirmary, a nonprofit community hospital in New Orleans, for just a few dollars, plus she could earn $5 a day while in training, she entered the medical field, an occupation that would take her to the far reaches of the Arizona desert.
Minnie completed three years of nurses’ training and served for eight years as a private duty nurse before World War II interrupted her career. She joined the Army Nurses Corps and was sent to North Africa and Italy. Her work in North Africa earned her the Bronze Star, and she left the Army as a 2nd lieutenant.
While she was stationed in Italy, Minnie married Army Captain William Platt. Their daughter, Ada Juanita, was born in 1945.
After the war, Minnie worked in the U.S. Marine Hospital in Savannah, Georgia, while furthering her education at the University of Georgia.
When her marriage fell apart, Minnie and her daughter relocated to Nashville, Tennessee. She earned a bachelor of science degree in field health nursing from Nashville’s Peabody College.
On Jan. 1, 1957, Minnie and 12-year-old Ada Juanita arrived in Winslow, Arizona, where Minnie was assigned to work as a field health nurse on the Navajo Reservation.
Field health nursing was initiated in 1928 by the U.S. Indian Service . According to W.W. Peter, who was Navajo Agency director during the 1930s, “A field nurse in the more primitive areas must be a versatile person of great resourcefulness. Her time is spent ‘in the field’ and with us that means desert mostly. She must be able to drive a car of uncertain vintage and vitality over roads that are trails or less. In the dry season she and all she carries gets covered with dust. In the wet season, with mud. She must be able to live with herself as company, for much of her time is spent alone.”
Initially, Minnie worked out of Winslow’s old Public Health Hospital along with nine other employees. But it wasn’t long before most of the staff left or were reassigned, and Minnie was almost solitarily tending to the needs of the Navajo people across hundreds of miles of desert land.
Minnie loved the scenic vistas she and her faithful driver (and probably interpreter), Sam, traversed across the reservation as she visited hogans where the sick and injured waited. With her territory ranging over distances of magnificent but desolate landscapes, she often averaged 60 to 200 miles a day.
If she and Sam had car trouble, they were on their own.
She was once almost trapped by a flash flood, and during a bitter snowstorm, Minnie and Sam were stranded in the tiny community of Leupp (pronounced Loop) about 50 miles south of the Grand Canyon. The Bureau of Indian Affairs had established an Indian boarding school in Leupp in 1902 and during World War II, the now abandoned boarding school was used as an isolation center for Japanese American internees. The camp was closed in 1944.
Tuberculosis, diphtheria, and a multitude of infections awaited Minnie wherever she traveled on the reservation.
One of the worst infections that spread rapidly and continuously across the land was trachoma, an infectious eye disease that results in scarring of the cornea and eventual blindness. It is brought on by poor sanitary conditions, lack of water, and abundant flies.
The infection ran rampant through the Navajo and Hopi reservations, with the only treatments initially available as a pill and an antiseptic solution that temporarily halted the progression of the disease but did not cure it.
Minnie also worked with expectant mothers to ensure they received enough nutrition for their infants.
Yet she similarly learned to appreciate the benefits of native plants. Navajo tea was one of her favorite drinks. Navajo tea is an herbal beverage made by brewing the yellow-flowered plant greenthread which is plucked by its stem to keep the roots intact. The plant is shaken so the seeds will return to the soil and continue the lifecycle. The herb is rinsed and dried for one to two days, then boiled in hot water.
Navajo tea has been used medicinally for centuries to alleviate joint pain, calm upset stomachs, and promote healthy kidney function.
Eventually, Minnie was assigned to run a clinic in Leupp for the Navajo and Hopi people. In the first year of the clinic, 150 children showed up to be treated. Ear infections were the prevailing ailment. The attending doctor performed dozens of ear operations while Minnie handed out hearing aids along with eyeglasses to the children provided by the clinic. She gave the youngsters extensive training in how to use and care for their new devices.
Minnie enjoyed the keen sense of humor of the Navajo people. At one clinic where she was teaching a sex education class, a young man came in wearing a rubber apron. When she asked what the apron was for, the man replied that he was practicing birth control.
During the years, Minnie was active in various organizations in Winslow, including the Women’s Club, the Winslow Historical Society and the American Nurses’ Association.
She served as first aid chair of the local Red Cross chapter in 1961. In 1969, she worked on a committee that organized a senior citizen program to provide recreational activities along with counseling services and information on health and welfare for older individuals.
That same year, she was elected first vice president of the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Winslow. And in 1972, the year she retired from field health services, Minnie was elected Winslow’s Woman of the Year for her continued efforts to provide health care for the Navajos and Hopis.
Ninety-year-old Minnie died on April 9, 2003. She is buried in Winslow’s Desert View Cemetery.
