May
16
3:00am
Cook Inlet Historical Society Presents: Pioneering Medicine In The Last Frontier—The Story Of Doc Fritz
By Anchorage Museum
For nearly five decades, Milo ‘Doc’ Fritz served Alaska as an eye, ear, nose and throat surgeon, bush pilot, and state legislator. Dr. Fritz came to Alaska in 1940, setting up practice in Ketchikan. He was a flight and command surgeon for the 11th Air Force during World War II. After the war, he relocated to New York, but in 1947 returned to Alaska at the request of the territory’s commissioner of health to investigate problems of blindness and deafness among children in Alaska Native communities.
With his wife Betsy, a nurse, he resumed a practice that took him into almost every remote community—to areas where there were no doctors, no clinics, and no health care facilities of any kind. The area he served covered almost one-fourth of Alaska, from Anchorage northeast to the Canadian border near Fort Yukon, west to Bettles and Huslia, south to Anvik and Shageluk, and east again over the Chugach Mountains to Anchorage. He was a physician in Anchorage at the time of the Alaska Earthquake of 1964.
Fritz was elected to the Alaska State Legislature in 1966 and again in 1970 to represent Anchorage in the House. After moving to Anchor Point, he was elected a third time, in 1982, representing the Kenai Peninsula.
In this presentation, Linda Fritz, author of Answering Alaska’s Call, draws from a treasure trove of archival materials, historic photographs, family anecdotes, and her own personal experiences to paint a compelling portrait of her uncle's remarkable life and enduring legacy.
This presentation is in-person and virtual via Crowdcast; the same link can be used to review the recorded event after the program’s conclusion. Those attending in person should use the 7th Avenue entrance to access the auditorium.
Copies of Linda Fritz’s book, Answering Alaska’s Call,will be available for purchase and signing at the conclusion of the event.
About the Speaker
Editor, writer, and essayist Linda Fritz is the author of Answering Alaska's Call, a memoir-biography about Alaska surgeon, bush pilot, and state legislator, Dr. Milo H. Fritz. Through archival research, augmented by her own personal records, correspondence and memories of her uncle, Linda chronicles the story of Doc Fritz who, with his wife and nurse Betsy, traveled from New York to Alaska in 1940 to pursue his dream of practicing medicine in Alaska. “True Pioneer,” an essay recalling the author's teenage experiences working as a nurse's aide in her uncle's Anchorage medical practice and itinerant clinics, was included in the 49 Writers’ memoir anthology Anchorage Remembers and served as a prelude to Answering Alaska's Call. Her articles and essays have appeared in a variety of east and west coast publications. Linda’s early interests in magazine journalism and travel led to writer/editor positions at Sunsetand Diversion magazines. Linda later served as the editor of the Delmarva Review literary journal published on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Senator Ted Stevens, “Tribute to Dr. Milo Fritz,” Congressional Record, 106th Cong., 2d sess., 2000, v. 146, pt. 13, 18123-18124; Jon Little, “Fritz Worked with Deaf, Blind in Alaska’s Bush,” Anchorage Daily News, September 8, 2000; and LindaFritz.org.
Photo Description: Dr. Fritz, assisted by Betsy and two Native girls, performing surgery in makeshift operating room during summer clinic to eight Yukon villages in 1961.
Photographed by Nancy E. Sydnam, M.D., Nancy E. Sydnam, M.D. papers. Accession No. 403, Legacy Center Archives, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphilia, PA.
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