"Sr. Lumberjack"

Benedictine Sisters
Duluth, Minnesota

In 1887, Mother Scholastica Kerst, superior of the Benedictine Sisters of St. Joseph, Minnesota, sent seven sisters to Duluth to open a hospital.

By 1893, St. Mary's had two sources of income: patient fees and payment from the county for charity patients. The sisters decided to implement a creative idea as a source of additional income. Health insurance had proved popular with the cowboys at the sisters' hospital in Bismarck, North Dakota. Tickets entitled the cowboys to free hospital care if they got hurt or sick.

Northern Minnesota in 1893 was experiencing a logging boom. Logging camps opened weekly, and the huge logs were sent to sawmills in Duluth. Because thousands of men in the timber industry had no access to quality medical care, the Benedictine sisters decided to offer a "lumberjack ticket." Purchasers of the lumberjack ticket were entitled to free medical care at St. Mary's Hospital and any other Benedictine hospital in northern Minnesota. The ticket cost from $1 to $5.

The chief saleswoman for the program was Sr. Amata Mackett, who stood 6 feet tall and weighed more than 200 pounds. By train, handcart, ox, or snowshoe, Sr. Amata traveled to the lumber camps of Minnesota's north woods to sell the men on the value of a lumberjack ticket.

While in the camps, Sr. Amata darned their socks, listened to their problems, and baked them pies. Eventually she became known as Sr. Lumberjack.

One time Sr. Amata arrived at a camp to find a logger with a mangled leg surrounded by wide-eyed and helpless men. She deftly took the situation in hand, cleaned and bandaged the wound, and demanded a horse and cart to transport the injured man to the nearest hospital.

But even as she took care of the lumberjacks, she did not let them take advantage of her. When the money they owed her for lumberjack tickets was slow coming in, she would chase men out of their bunkhouses with a poker to collect.

On her way back to Duluth late one evening after a collection trip, Sr. Amata was attacked by a man who tried to steal her money. She wielded her umbrella on the hapless thief, who quickly turned tail and ran -- leaving the money with her.

The lumberjack ticket was abandoned in 1913 when legislation in Minnesota mandated workers' compensation.