Pioneer Women: Nell Francis Smiley - My Story*

in this photo: The building on the right side of this photo is the Smiley home in Indio, California. It now houses several museum exhibits. (Photo: Coachella Valley Historical Society)

Pioneer Women: Nell Francis Smiley - My Story*

This story is reprinted from the 2021 edition of The Periscope: Women Behaving Badly… For Good!, a publication of the Coachella Valley Historical Society. Copies of past and current issues of The Periscope are available for purchase in the Gift Shop at Coachella Valley History Museum.

What a catastrophe! The year was 1921 and we had reached Box Canyon, just east of Mecca, California, on our way to Los Angeles where my husband, Dr. Harry W. Smiley, M.D., planned to open a medical practice.

We had slowly plodded our way for 1,437 miles all the way from Fayetteville, Arkansas, where the temperature was 26°F when we left. Harry had just graduated from the University of Arkansas Medical School. While we were there, the summers were hot and muggy, the winters were chilly, and it was partly cloudy year-round with an average rainfall of 45 inches. We were ready for the coast of sunny Southern California.

And then it happened. Our poor old Dodge touring car broke down, and we didn't have sufficient funds to fix it. We were broke! We managed to get a ride to the little town of Indio where we hoped Harry could make some money to get us to the coast.

It was February and the weather in Indio was beautiful - a warm, dry, sunny 78°F. Lo and behold, we discovered that Indio had no full-time doctor. We looked at each other and decided that this little town of 1,187 could be our future. We decided to stay. Even the town newspaper, The Date Palm, covered our arrival.

We secured a cottage next to the Indio garage at the intersection of the state highway and Fargo Street. Originally owned by Mr. and Mrs. Howard Gard, the cottage was now owned by Iona McKenzie. The front yard was lined with a low green picket fence. There were two large Washingtonian palm trees, quite a sight for my "Midwest" eyes, a lawn, and flower beds all in bloom. I fell in love at first sight.

The cottage had two bedrooms and thank heavens, a modern bathroom, at least for the time period. There was a kitchen, a dining area, and a living room. Fortunately, the cottage had been wired for electricity in 1915 and there was hot and cold running water. Without these modern conveniences, I doubt whether we would have planned to stay for very long. However, I already began to imagine what kind of a home we could move into once Harry's medical practice was established.

We converted the front bedroom into a consultation and examination room. The large front porch became the waiting room, except on cold days, when I insisted, we use the living room as a waiting room. I knew that to pay the bills, we needed patients, and the best way to keep the patients was to make them as comfortable as possible while they waited. I assisted Harry, took caare of the finances, and attended to all the business side of the medical practice. You see, Harry was a kind, dedicated physician who wouldn’t charge anyone a fee unless I pressed the issue.

Harry's practice grew rapidly, and I was efficient with the collections. Soon, at my instigation, we purchased two lots on the northeast corner of Miles Avenue and Oasis Street.

Commercial development had not yet started on Miles. Fargo Street and Miles were graveled, and there were no sidewalks. However, I could see that the town was continuing to grow, and I felt that property on the edge of town would only increase in value over time.

We had two prefabricated cottages placed on the lot facing Miles Avenue. The larger one, on the comer, was converted into a home and office with its own waiting room. The examining room was also set up as a little surgery center for suturing wounds and setting fractures. We couldn't afford an x-ray machine yet so Harry set fractures by the feel of it. He rolled his own Plaster of Paris dressing to make casts for the fractures.

We had to make some expenditures for Harry's practice. For example, he needed a microscope to examine urine and fecal samples. To sterilize his surgical instruments, he wanted to use my pressure cooker. I drew the line and insisted he purchase an electric autoclave, a special machine that used the power of steam to deliver a lengthy blast of steam to kill off germs that would survive a simple washing in boiling water and detergents.

As the practice continued to flourish, we splurged and purchased the very first radio to be brought to the Coachella Valley. Oh, how we loved to gather around it in the evening and listen to special broadcasts. Initially, the radio stations were a service designed to sell radio receivers, but, as radio ownership increased, so did the number of radio stations.

From the medical practice proceeds and rents from our properties, I saved enough money to expand our real estate holdings. I found several lots that we purchased in 1925 on the northeast corner of Miles Avenue and Deglet Noor Street. There was no construction yet west of Oasis Street and our land was felt by the townspeople to be out in the country in the sagebrush. But I had a vision of the growth that was yet to come. We made plans for a large adobe structure of approximately 3,500 sq. ft. of floor space that would be our home and have adequate space for Harry's practice. First a well was drilled and then, being from the Midwest, we decided to have a basement excavated, something that was not typical in Southern California.

Even though I was busy watching our finances and making collections, I found time each day to supervise the progress of our new home/office as it grew around a spacious interior courtyard. The adobe bricks were made on the site and before long, our one-story adobe home began to take shape. The style developed was quite eclectic- a little Spanish Colonial, some Mission revival, and some Mediterranean features. Hand-hewn wooden beans were used and, to give support, large hewn horizontal lintels were installed over the doors and windows while large wooden shutters were added to the windows.

We had several special features built into our new home: a maid's quarters next to the garage, and a kitchen equipped with a dumb waiter by which the maid could deliver our meals as we dined in the cool basement during the hot summer months. The dining room on the main floor had an electric buzzer built on the floor so I could call the maid. An intercom system, powered by batteries in the attic, served the kitchen, master bedroom, basement, and waiting room. Patients could announce their arrival using the intercom.

In 1930, we opened a summer office in Idyllwild so we could escape from the summer heat, and I had an apartment building constructed behind our home in Indio. Known as the Deglet Noor apartments, we collected rent from the two-story building to supplement the medical practice. To provide a sense of privacy, we had an adobe wall of over 5 ft. tall built around the property. Many trees were planted, and I kept a rose garden with a variety of flower beds. Having fresh flowers in the waiting room created a warm atmosphere and gave some cheer to the patients.

When we were not at one of our offices, we could be found vacationing in Alaska. Harry delighted in being a big game hunter and, much to my chagrin, he insisted on decorating the waiting room walls with animal heads.

Eventually, when Harry retired in 1938, we purchased a home on the Hood Canal in the State of Washington. During World War II there was such a shortage of civilian doctors in Indio that we returned to the now flourishing city of Indio.

After the war, we left Indio and purchased a home in La Jolla. We had taken a long journey to get there, but we finally settled along the Southern California Coast.

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*While Nell's story is a fictional account created by Priscilla H. Porter, it is based on the following references located in the archives of the Coachella Valley History Museum.

Coachella Valley Historical Society. Periscope - Souvenir Pictorial Edition. October 1984.

Coachella Valley Submarine. May 2, 1924.

Pawley, Dr. Ralph. The Periscope, 1999, 13-14.

Pawley, Dr. Ralph. "Early Valley Medical History." The Periscope: A Collection of Stories and Recollections about the Coachella Valley, 1981.

The Date Palm, February 4, 1921.

The Date Palm, May 12, 1955.

The Great Register, 1920.