Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

In Praise of Millie

I am Millie Niss's mother, and it's a privilege to write a few words about my daughter's life and work for Cell 2 Soul. Like so many people whose lives are marked with chronic illness, Millie endured as long as she did because she was a fighter. She was intolerant of incompetence in medical personnel, family members or friends, because she knew that their mistakes could cost her her life. At the same time, she had the gift of generous concern for and interest in others that allowed her to make respectful connections even when she had been harmed. In her final hospitalization, she was certain she'd suffered a vertebral fracture during a sheet change. (She was correct.) Intubated, she wrote to her nurse: “I am not even blaming people for injuring me as I have osteoporosis but at least believe me that I have been injured.”

Millie was one of the best-educated people I have ever known. English/French bilingual, she held an honors baccalaureate in physics and math from a French lycee along with her honors BA in Math from Columbia University where she also studied as much poetry as she could and taught GED courses to Columbia employees so they could improve their lives.

I have selected three texts from Millie's poetry collection (City Bird, Blazevox, 2010) which I believe show Millie's tenderness for human suffering, her appetite for literature, and her attitude toward her own health care.

Three Poems by Millie Niss: Download M. NIss Poems

More about Millie Niss's life:  Download First Create by Martha Deed

City Bird

The Last Collaboration

Bio:  Martha Deed, PhD is a retired psychologist, poet recipient of two Pushcart nominations, and a member of Consumer Union's Safe Patient Project patient safety advocate network. She edited City Bird: Selected Poems (1991-2009) by Millie Niss (BlazeVox, 2010) and wrote The Last Collaboration (Furtherfield, 2012).  Both books are available through Amazon.  Her website: www.sporkworld.org/Deed and blog: sporkworld.tumblr.com.  You may email her at: M_Deed.

A Country Doctor: In Memoriam

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,   
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; 
 Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.  

Clayton W. Nesbit, M.D. (1938)

Born: 10/15/10, Pittsfield, MA
Graduated Pittsfield High School, first in class, 1928
Graduated Williams College, Phi Beta Kappa, 1932
M.D. Harvard Medical School, 1936;
Internship Albany Hospital 1936-37;Residency St. Luke’s Hospital, Pittsfield, MA, 1937-38
Marriage to Marion Bastow, July 2, 1938
City Physician, Pittsfield, MA 1938-1942
U.S. Navy, Active Duty, 1942-1946
General Practitioner in Pittsfield, MA 1946-1965
Incapacitating Stroke: August, 1965
Death: April 6, 1982

"My father was the kind of doctor about whom people today often reminisce wistfully, an old fashioned family doctor in all the best senses of this phrase."  Read Jennifer Shapp's moving tribute to her father:  Download My father Clayton Nesbit

You may contact Mrs. Shapp at: J. Shapp