Margaret Ecker

Contributed by Margaret Ecker, August 2019

I joined the Coalition as a community organizer after graduating from Vanderbilt in Philosophy in 1970. I stayed on with the Coalition through the next school year to help with year end reports and preparation for the next summer. Inspired by the work of the Coalition, I eventually put aside plans for law school and went on to earn a master’s degree in nursing and then nurse practitioner education before returning to East Tennessee. Bill Dow was my clinical preceptor.

I came back to Briceville, Tenn. in 1975 to work in their community owned clinic, located in a TVA trailer. Byrd Duncan was my supervisor, and Rick Davidson provided medical coverage for my clinical decisions. Later, I moved back to Nashville and worked in the Planned Parenthood Teen Clinic, and the primary care clinic at Cayce Homes. Irwin Venick was my boss at the Cayce Clinic.

In the late 1980s, I came out to Los Angeles to pursue a master’s degree in Fine Arts. For my first paying job as an artist, I taught Art Appreciation in a women’s prison. But eventually I drifted back to nursing, first at the beside of pediatric oncology patients, and eventually in hospital administration as director of nursing quality at a tertiary care hospital here in LA.

Just after retirement, in 2013, I was privileged to hear Bill Corr, then assistant secretary of HHS and former administrator for a network of clinics in East Tennessee, talk about the fabulousness of the Affordable Care Act. Inspired by Bill Corr’s words, I came over to Tennessee for the next two years to help with the roll out of ACA, in a state generally hostile to the project. The Tennessee Justice Center provided a home base for that work. The old ties from East and West Tennessee were invaluable in the grass roots organizing that we did in a so-far-futile effort to get the state legislators to expand medicaid. The suffering that the lack of Medicaid expansion has foisted on rural communities in Tennessee (and elsewhere) has been especially brutal, but the old community leaders keep on keeping on, fighting to keep hope alive for better health care, and so do their descendants.

Back in LA, I now work the primary care angle again, providing volunteer nursing care on the street for people unhoused while they wait for the wheels of justice to grind them out some affordable housing. Out here on the left coast, health care is more often a right, not just a privilege, than in many others other states in our country. I feel lucky to have learned the critical value of that principle early on, coming of age as I did under the influence of the SHC, way back in the beginning.


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Early archive project dissonance

Margaret Ecker elaborates on the early dissonance among archive project participants about who to partner with and where to document the Coalition story: at Vanderbilt’s University Archives or UNC’s Southern Historical Collection. Follow this link for access to the full-length… Continued

On the archive project’s first iteration: a documentary film

Jack Beckford notes that prior to any official connection with the Southern Historical Collection, Margaret Ecker and Lark Hayes had decided to make a documentary film about the Coalition story–an initiative born from energy at the 2012 Landon House reunion… Continued

The first phone call: Biff Hollingsworth connects with Margaret Ecker

Biff Hollingsworth, Collecting and Public Programming Archivist with the Southern Historical Collection, delineates more of the timeline at the start of UNC’s partnership with the Student Health Coalition. Margaret Ecker recounts their first phone call in early 2013, a conversation… Continued

“We lived with a coal burning stove and kept our provisions in gallon glass jugs against the mice.”

[Story contributed by Margaret Ecker, RN, MSN] Sometime around 1975, local friends in Lake City offered us newly minted community organizers this abandoned house for a dwelling. We lived communally, our numbers fluctuating with the season. We lived with a… Continued

Did we make a difference? Margaret Ecker and Rosie Hammond reflect.

Margaret Ecker and Rosie Hammond grapple with the question: did we (the SHC) make a difference? Margaret shares how, in reflection of Art Van Zee’s insight to ongoing addiction throughout southwest Virginia and the Appalachian region, there are new challenges… Continued

Preservation and access of community legacies

Margaret Ecker describes a “fringe benefit” of the archive project as it pertains to the collective memory restoration of community stories, such as those belonging to Howard and Fay Elliot of St. Charles, Va., J.W. and Kate Bradley, Maureen O’Connell,… Continued

Margaret Ecker reflects on unique nature of the Coalition’s power

Margaret Ecker reflects on the power of the Coalition, however invisible at the time, and its success in changing institutions, unconventional and inchoate though it was. She brings John Gaventa’s conclusion on the matter, as further detailed in his book… Continued

Challenges facing nurse practitioners

Outside the old clinic building of what used to be Douglas Community Health Center, Margaret Ecker and Jean Carney discuss the multitude of challenges facing nurse practitioners and what legislative movement’s been made to overcome adversity of such restrictive practice.… Continued

On the Coalition’s installation of hope, strength, and inspiration to keep going

Margaret Ecker frames healthcare as a tool the SHC elected to use toward community empowerment, concluding, along with Rosie Hammond, that while the Coalition may not have made many structural changes to healthcare in the region, their community organizing efforts… Continued

Margaret Ecker, new NP, treats a young girl with severe allergic reaction

Margaret Ecker describes the scary experience and pressure of treating a young girl exhibiting severe allergy to multiple yellow jacket stings in Clairfield, Tenn. Follow this link for full-footage of Margaret Ecker’s and Rosie Hammond’s reflections about their SHC experience… Continued

“For several years after that episode, the family sent me a card on their daughter’s birthday, thanking me for saving her life.”

[Story contributed by Margaret Ecker, RN, MSN] My first job as a nurse practitioner began around 1975, in a Briceville, Tenn. community-run clinic housed in a trailer and managed by a local board chaired by the venerable Byrd Duncan. A… Continued

“What it took” – Nine nurses reconvene fifty years later and discover the power of common denominators

Nine nurses gathered in Nashville in May 2019 to reminisce about their beginnings as nurses. Nursing practice underwent radical changes in those days. These nine nurses stood apart from their peers and in conflict with convention. Here, they discuss what… Continued

On communal living at the Ponderosa

Margaret Ecker describes the communal living experience characteristic of those who stayed at the Ponderosa in Lake City, Tenn., a property donated by locals to host Coalition students. Follow this link for full-footage of Margaret Ecker’s and Rosie Hammond’s reflections… Continued

Impetus behind the SHC archive project

Margaret Ecker and John Davis offer insight about the initial impetus behind and collective vision for the SHC archive project. They cite the collective memory restoration that transpired at a 2012 Landon House reunion, the subsequent inspiration to further uncover… Continued

Discussion about the SHC’s degree of influence on approaches to nursing

Margaret Ecker and Rosie Hammond discuss their difference in perspective about the Coalition’s degree of influence on participants, namely as it regards those who went on to pursue nursing. They ponder how much certain characteristics (such as fierce autonomy and… Continued

Tom John in brevis

Dr. Tom John speaks about his experiences with the Student Health Coalition (SHC) and the Center for Health Services (CHS). Recorded by Margaret Ecker, 2013. Continued

Article: “Second Health Fair in Progress,” from the Oak Ridger

Lunsford, Larry. “Second Health Fair In Progress.” Oak Ridger, 1971. View PDF. Transcription: A second “Health Fair” is currently in progress at the Briceville Elementary School in the Briceville Community west of Lake City. (It continues through Friday.) Sponsored by the Briceville… Continued

Margaret Ecker on early SHC work: dental screening in Williamson County, Tenn.

Margaret Ecker shares the story of Bill Dow’s and Pat Maxwell’s collaborative dental screening of children at a Headstart in Williamson County, Tenn. She frames it as an early manifestation of the SHC’s Saul Alinsky-inspired approach to addressing community public… Continued

On institutional benefit of student-led Coalition energy and notoriety

Margaret Ecker and Bob Hartmann discuss how the university seemed to be feeding off of and trying to control Coalition energy and notoriety in the effort to recruit foundation dollars. He shares the story of his trip escorting Sir George… Continued

On the contrast between Coalition and Center approaches to healthcare in Appalachia

Margaret Ecker and Irwin Venick summarize the differences and ensuing conflict between the Coalition’s and the university’s motivations, priorities, and framework of their approach to healthcare in Appalachia. Irwin makes an important distinction between the Medical School’s focus on community… Continued

On Vanderbilt’s first PrimEx program and its role in the movement toward Nurse Practitioners

Rosie Hammond describes her life post-SHC, beginning with an invitation to participate in Vanderbilt’s first PrimEx program during her Senior year. PrimEx was a government-sponsored initiative designed to provide primary care training for nurses. It functioned as a pivotal step… Continued

On the resourcefulness, work ethic, and generosity of people and communities in the mountains

Margaret Ecker describes what impressed her most about people and communities in the mountains, highlighting Byrd Duncan’s role in establishing and maintaining the Briceville Clinic. She also mentions J.W. Bradley and Marie Cirillo. Rosie Hammond reflects on other characteristics, such… Continued

Student Health Coalition Reunion Materials, 2009 and 2013, Southern Historical Collection, UNC Chapel Hill

Files transferred from the William W. Dow Papers (#05612) that document two Student Health Coalition reunions. One attended by Dow in 2009, and another hosted in Nashville in 2013 after Dow’s death in 2012. Materials include correspondence between former coalition… Continued

Margaret Ecker on her inspiration to pursue nursing

Margaret Ecker shares about early career pursuits and explains how the Student Health Coalition (SHC) played a prominent role in steering her toward a life of service through nursing. Recorded on June 2, 2018.   Full footage of the conversation… Continued

“Radical Hearts” and their dress code

Margaret Ecker reminisces with the Appalachian Student Health Coalition at a gathering in 2013.   Her story about the students’ dress code was influenced by the clip below of Kate and J.W. Bradley, where they discuss what their community said about the  students… Continued

Margaret Ecker’s introduction to the Coalition and its role in her shift of career pursuits

Margaret Ecker describes her introduction to the Student Health Coalition during the summer of 1970. She had just graduated from Vanderbilt University with plans to pursue a law degree. Having not yet set the intention to pursue a career in… Continued

Margaret Ecker’s perspective on local home-stays and her experience among the Melungeon Community

Margaret Ecker shares her perspective on the Coalition’s unique opportunity for students to stay with local families, and the power doing so had on the relationship-building element crucial to effective community organizing. As an example, she reminisces her experience among… Continued