And Then There Was One: A Nurse’s Memories of A.G. Holley State Tuberculosis Hospital

The frank and endearing true story of Peggy Butler, a young girl from the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio, who loves music and dreams of becoming a performer, until an illness in her early teens changes her goal and her life dramatically. This stirring memoir offers a vivid picture of what it was like to be an aspiring nurse in the 1950s. Butler’s accounts of the stigma endured by people with tuberculosis, a contagious disease with no known cure at that time, are heart-rending.

Peggy Butler retired from hospice nursing in 2002, after 47 years in several diverse fields of nursing, including tuberculosis control. A community and political activist, the author lived on the island of Key West for several years where she reported on the Key West City Commission meetings for a local publication and multiple websites, including her own, and coordinated a food pantry for her church, among other volunteer endeavors. Her debut novel, Starfish (SeaStory Press, 2003), was written under her pseudonym, Peg Gregory. Her short stories and professional articles have appeared in national and local publications and won numerous awards. She has two daughters, four granddaughters, and a great-granddaughter in Florida and Kansas. The author recently moved to mainland Florida.