Browse Items · Museums and Material Culture (Fall 2023)

Interview with Jerry Smith

Jerry Smith is the older son of Lester R. “Red” Smith, a Union Pacific engineer and patient at the Nebraska State Hospital for Tuberculosis in the late 1950s. His family lived in North Platte.

Margaret Brown (née Nutzman) lived in the Stone House for most of her childhood. Her father, Dr. William E. Nutzman, was the last and longest-serving superintendent of the Nebraska State Hospital for Tuberculosis.

Interview with Russell Smith

Russell Smith is the younger son of Lester R. “Red” Smith, a Union Pacific engineer and patient at the Nebraska State Hospital for Tuberculosis in the late 1950s. His family lived in North Platte.

Interview with Karen Penington

Karen Penington (née Worley) lived with her family in employee housing at the Nebraska State Hospital for Tuberculosis beginning in the late 1940s. Her mother and both grandmothers worked as hospital staff. One grandmother, Fern Worley, served as…

Interview with Helen Kinnamen

Helen Kinnaman (née Axmann) worked in the kitchens of the Nebraska State Hospital for Tuberculosis in 1942-1943. She and her childhood friend, Irene Mollard, lived in dormitory-style housing on the third floor of the Stone House.

Interview with Anne Ryan

Anne Ryan (née Schmidt) worked in the dining room of the Nebraska State Hospital for Tuberculosis as a teenager in the late 1940s. Her mother, Augusta Schmidt (later Augusta Register), served as a nurse’s aide for 23 years. They lived in employee…

Kearney & Its People

This excerpt from the 1926 silent film, Kearney and Its People, shows the patients, staff, and grounds of the Nebraska State Hospital for Tuberculosis. It opens with a view of the first permanent hospital building (1917), and also features the…