Herbert Merton and Jeanne Todd Greene papers, 1849-2003

Herbert Merton Greene was born on October 5, 1878 in Mitchell County, North Carolina. He attended public schools in North Carolina and Washington. Greene attended the University of Oregon Medical School (UOMS) with the class of 1904. After serving his internship at Multnomah County Hospital, the North Pacific Sanitarium, and Dr. Coffey Hospital, Greene completed post-graduate work at the Vanderbilt Clinic in New York.

In addition to serving as chief surgeon at Camp Lewis during World War I, Greene had a private practice in rural Lacrosse, WA before returning to Portland in 1918. From 1918 until his retirement in 1957, Greene taught at UOMS, maintained a private practice in the Medical Arts Building, served as Chief Surgeon for Twohy Brothers Railroad Contractors, and ran a small business out of his home, selling barbicide and pharmaceutical preparations.

Greene was also very active in the community with organizations such as the Freemasons and the Anglo-Saxon Christian Association (known today as part of the "Christian Identity" movement, which promotes a racial interpretation of Christianity). Among other accomplishments, he developed the Greene special puncture needle, which was designed to minimize trauma associated with spinal taps. He died in 1962 at the age of 87 after a long struggle with deteriorating health and diminished eyesight - the after effects of radiation exposure from his time as operator of the first x-ray machine on the West Coast, back in 1898.

Jenny Todd Booth was born March 7, 1886 near Trucksville, Pennsylvania. At the age of 17 she became a teacher to a class of 63 students in a one-room schoolhouse near Harvey's Lake, Pennsylvania. After a ruptured appendix forced her to bedrest, she chose to enroll in nurse's training at New York City's Roosevelt Hospital. After graduation, Booth' first position was at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. but with a war on the horizon, the military was looking to fill the Army Nurses Corps and with a thirst for travel and adventure, Booth enrolled and accepted an assignment at the Presidio (a military fort) in San Francisco, California.

As World War I continued, Booth was transferred to Camp Lewis (now Fort Lewis) in Washington State as the Chief of Nurses. It was here that Booth met her future husband, Major Herbert Merton Greene, who was soon after promoted to acting base hospital commander and together they ran the medical services for Fort Lewis.

Nurses were not permitted to be married and remain in the Corps, so after tendering her resignation, she and Greene married the following year. At this point, Jenny began to go by the name Jeanne Todd Greene. After World War I, the now Colonel Greene retired from the army and they relocated to Portland, Oregon where they built their home and lived out their remaining years surrounded by friends and family. Jeanne Todd Greene (Jenny Todd Booth) died at the age of 95 on January 30, 1982.