http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/obituaries/bal-md.ob.kendall01feb01,1,6411300.story?coll=bal-news-obituaries
Florence Peterson Kendall, 95, physical therapy pioneer
By Nicole Fuller
sun reporter
February 1, 2006
Florence Peterson Kendall, a pioneer in the field of physical therapy
as an advocate, author and academic, died Saturday at the Sunrise
assisted-living facility in Severna Park after battling cancer. She was
95.
In 1947, Mrs. Kendall helped draft legislation that legally established
the practice of physical therapy in Maryland. She received numerous
accolades during her more than 70 years in the field, including being
named Physical Therapist of the Century by the Maryland Chapter of the
American Physical Therapy Association in 2002.
She wrote eight books, including - along with her husband, Henry O.
Kendall - five editions of a book on muscles that has been translated
into nine languages and read by generations of physical therapists. Her
husband died in 1979.
A mother of three daughters who dispensed advice to neighbors and
friends suffering from aches and pains, she remained active until her
death - even examining the ailing back of the husband of one of her
caregivers.
"Half of my neighborhood ended up on our living room rug," said a
daughter, Susan Nolte of Severna Park, with whom Mrs. Kendall had lived
for the last 28 years. "Everyone would come over if they had a pain.
And she'd get right down there on the floor - and I mean in her 90s -
and tell them what was wrong."
Born to Swedish immigrants in Minnesota in 1910, she was raised on a
farm with her 13 siblings. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in
physical education from the University of Minnesota. She taught
physical education at a high school in Minnesota for a year, before she
made the switch to physical therapy, a field she favored because it
involved administering medical attention to patients, but didn't
involve blood, Mrs. Nolte said.
She traveled to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where
she studied physical therapy and worked for a little more than a year
before she was laid off because of budget cuts. Her next stop was
Children's Hospital in Baltimore, where she met her husband, who was
its director of physical therapy. They co-wrote a U.S. Public Health
Service bulletin on the aftercare of polio, which later became an
important blueprint for treatment of the disease.
They married in 1935.
The couple opened a private practice on St. Paul Street in 1952. Mrs.
Kendall often shuttled her husband to work because of vision loss he
suffered during service in the Army in World War I.
She also taught physical therapy at the University of Maryland School
of Medicine and the old Johns Hopkins Hospital nursing school.
In a June interview with The Sun, Mrs. Kendall said, "This is a
profession for caring, conscientious and sincere people."
Among her patients were the son of the president of Mexico and the wife
of actor Clark Gable, Susan Nolte said.
She closed her private practice in the mid-1970s but never retired, her
daughter said. She traveled the country, attending conferences, signing
copies of her books and speaking to physical therapy professionals.
"If you went to a convention with her, you couldn't walk down the
hall," Susan Nolte said. "Everyone was hugging her."
Services will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Grace Methodist Church,
5407 N. Charles St. in Baltimore.
She is also survived by two other daughters, Elizabeth Kendall McCreary
of Honolulu and Florence Tyler of Baltimore; seven grandchildren; and
six great-grandchildren.
nicole.fuller@baltsun.com
Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun