Wilma Carlton

Wilma Carlton was born in Columbus, Texas, on September 25, 1882, the first child of Mississippi natives Senie Needham and Thomas Jefferson Carlton. Her family settled in the Pin Oak area of Milam County 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 before another railroad employee killed him in 1899. After her mother moved to Cameron and operated a boardinghouse there, Wilma Carlton, then 17, left Texas to attend the Union Benevolent Association Training School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, an early acclaimed nursing school, and graduated in 1904 from training based on Florence Nightingale's example. That same year, Doctors Arthur Carroll Scott and Raleigh R. White, Jr. established Temple Sanitarium and a supporting nurses training program, and in 1905 they hired Carlton as the program superintendent. In that role she oversaw teachers, courses, and schedules for nurses in training, served as liaison between them and the hospital's physicians, and became known for her compassionate bedside manner and her embodiment of Florence Nightingale's teachings. During her 17-year career in Temple, she was a statewide leader in nursing who worked toward licensing standards, was active in the Red Cross, and belonged to national and state professional groups including 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 age 40.

Temple, Texas · United States