by Roy Taylor, Business to Business Reporter

Enter Caroline Flatt Rupert, a woman whose influence is still felt in McLean County to this day. In her nearly 100 year lifetime, she was instrumental in promoting the nursing profession as well as improving the overall quality of life in this area.

Enter Cynthia Miller, Illinois Wesleyan University senior, who would like to follow in Ms. Rupert’s footsteps. Miller spent nearly six months researching and writing a paper on Rupert’s contribution to the nursing field.

Although the two women’s lifetimes are separated by a century, both had/have one goal in mind-to contribute to the field of nursing for the betterment of mankind.

According to Miller, Rupert was born in 1867 and founded the Brokaw Hospital School of Nursing (which eventually became the Wesleyan School of Nursing) in 1902. She served as the school’s nursing superintendent for five years. She was married in 1907, and in 1911 became president of the Women’s Club of Bloomington. During her activity with this organization, she successfully lobbied for safer health standards here in town, as well as stricter nursing education standards across the state.

Miller says at the time, garbage was simply thrown into the streets before being hauled away, and Rupert helped pass an ordinance that required garbage to be placed in cans for pickup. She also spearheaded a successful effort to require bread from bakeries be wrapped in waxed paper before it was sold.

Miller believe these were especially significant events for that day and age, considering women did not have the right to vote.

Rupert stayed involved with the community for the remainder of her life. In addition to the Women’s Club, she also was involved with the McLean County Historical Society and the Castalian Club. She also continued to write articles for Wesleyan’s alumni newsletter and participated in campus events whenever possible.

Miller says there was one year that Rupert could not attend Wesleyan’s homecoming festivities.

She (Rupert) wrote a letter explaining she could not attend because of a nursing convention held in Peoria that weekend. At that time, she was 83 years old!

At the age of 94, Rupert was still teaching a nursing class on the Wesleyan campus.

Rupert passed away in 1967, two months short of her 100th birthday. The Caroline Rupert Award for Outstanding Nursing was established before her death but was not actually implemented until later. Miller believes this was the first award of its kind in the nation, although this has not been confirmed.

“Ms. Rupert was just an incredible woman,” Miller said.

Miller wrote the paper on Rupert as an independent study project at IWU. Research for the paper took the whole of Wesleyan’s “short term” (a month-long winter session dedicated entirely to one class), Miller says. Piecing together the story on Rupert took Miller to the McLean County Historical Society, Bloomington Public Library, archives on Wesleyan’s campus, and as far away as the Midwest nursing History Research Center at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She also interviewed Rupert’s granddaughter, who is now in her 90s.

The highlight of Miller’s research came when her paper was selected for presentation at an Illinois women’s history conference, held at the University of Illinois in March. Miller was chosen to participate in the conference after submitting an abstract of the paper last fall. She was the only undergraduate to present a paper at the conference.

Miller plans to carry on the tradition of Wesleyan nursing students when she graduates this month. She will take her nursing board tests in June, and will be employed as an O.B. nurse at a hospital in Champaign. Eventually, she plans to return to school for her master’s degree.

In Miller’s opinion, the health care system in America definitely needs some help. “Everyone blames each other for rising costs and lack of affordable care,” she says, and “no one wants to take responsibility for the problems.”

Even with President and Mrs. Clinton’s health care offensive, Miller says there will be no quick fix. “It has taken years for the system to incur the problems it has, and it will take years to fix it,” she says.