Winona Gold Campbell, M.D.

October 11, 1910 - November 3, 2002

By Jil Campbell

Winona Gould was born into a farming family and lived at Elmhurst Stock Farms in Danby, Vermont. She went to a one-room school house with one teacher for all eight grades.

In 1920 her father sent her to live with her grandmother, who was going blind. Her grandmother encouraged Winona to get the best education available.

She graduated from Grandville High School in 1928. She wanted to go to medical school, but at the time it was difficult for women to get in and very expensive. She decided a nursing degree would help her get into medical school, and she could work as a nurse to pay her way. She went to nursing school at Elliott Hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Winona graduated with a nursing degree in 1932. She then entered Tufts University, graduated in 1936, then went to Physicians and Surgeons Medical School at Columbia, graduating in 1940.

While attending Columbia she met Frank C. Campbell. The couple married at her father’s Elmhurst Stock Farm on September 3, 1938.

They honeymooned in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The next year they returned and climbed from Mt. Lafayette to Mt. Washington. This was the beginning of an incredible life together of medicine, mountaineering, and world travel.

Winona and Frank landed in Denver in 1946 with their daughter Susie. Later on they adopted three more children, Jim, Jil, and Larry. Around that same time they bought some property in the Estes Park area, and the family spent many years climbing in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

In 1946, Winona and Frank joined the Colorado Mountain Club. Their children were members of the Denver Juniors.

In 1956, Winona became Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the physician in charge of Pediatrics at Denver General Hospital.

It was through her efforts that the Rocky Mountain Poison Center was established at Denver General. In 1986 she received a Rocky Mountain Poison Center Founders Award.

Before the polio vaccine came about in 1955, Susie Campbell became ill with polio. Winona became interested in how polio patients were cared for and set up rehabilitation clinics and trained staff members to care of polio patients. She did this in Colorado and five states that border Colorado.

When the polio epidemic was over, Winona turned her attention to asthma. She became the first board-certified allergist in the state of Colorado. In 1988, the Colorado Allergy Society established the Winona G. Campbell Award, given to physicians whose contributions reflect the accomplishments of this incredible woman.

In between her amazing medical career, she climbed. Her first fourteener was Longs Peak. The whole family got to climb most of the peaks in the Estes Park area with her. She also climbed most of the fourteeners with the CMC and family.

Winona and Frank climbed Mt. Rainier in 1953 with the CMC. This was the first of many volcanoes she climbed. Subsequently, in 1954, they climbed Popocatepetl  and Orizaba on a CMC trip to Mexico. At the summit of Orizaba, Winona heard someone say, “The only volcano crater higher than Orizaba is Kilimanjaro in Africa.” Consequently, in 1957 Winona and Frank set off with other CMC members to climb Kilimanjaro and the Mountains of the Moon.

While the American Everest expedition was going on in 1963, Winona and Frank did a trek through Nepal. With the medical supplies they took with them, they treated many Sherpa people along the trail and made many new friends.

Mt. Olympus was their next adventure in 1970. The mountain has five peaks, and Winona climbed all of them. Another trip in 1970 took them to the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands where they climbed Mt. Tiedi.

The last climb Winona and Frank did was yet another volcano, Mt. Etna in Sicily.

There came a time when the climbing stopped but the travels did not. From 1974 to 1996, Winona and Frank found their way around the world. Winona also traveled without Frank to Peru and China with friends, and she made two trips to India, Pakistan, and Nepal with friends and family.

My life has been enriched by Winona not only as a mother, but also as a dear friend. The memories are very sweet indeed. P