Lini De Vries
| Lini M. De Vries | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 25, 1905 Prospect Park, New Jersey |
| Died | March 27, 1982 (aged 76) Ridgewood, New Jersey |
| Occupation | Public Health Nurse |
| Parent(s) | Elisabeth ("Betty") (De Vries) Moerkerk Leonard Moerkerk Bernard Pollack (biological father) |
Lini M. De Vries (July 25, 1905—March 27, 1982), born Lena Moerkerk in Prospect Park, New Jersey, was a Dutch–American author, public health nurse, and teacher. She worked as chief of American Hospital Number 3 on the Madrid-Valencia Road during the Spanish Civil War and later organized health clinics in New Mexico, California, and Puerto Rico. She moved to Mexico in 1949 after her membership in the Communist Party was exposed. In Mexico, De Vries taught medicine and public health to indigenous villagers in the Papaloapan River Basin in Oaxaca; taught anthropology and public health at the University of Veracruz; was a founder of CIDOC, a religious, educational and cultural school; and helped found Cemanahuac, an educational community in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Dutch was the language of her childhood home, and De Vries did not learn English until she attended grammar school. After completing the sixth grade, De Vries was sent to work in silk mills. Her work and experience in the silk mills is detailed in her autobiography (1979) Up from the Cellar. In 1921, De Vries' left the silk mills to work for a telephone company in Paterson, New Jersey. In 1925, she matriculated to a nurses training program at New Rochelle Hospital Training School for Nurses in New York. After receiving her nursing degree, De Vries married Wilbur Fuhr (June 5, 1928). A daughter, Mary Lee, was born to the couple in 1930. Shortly after Mary Lee's birth, Fuhr died unexpectedly. De Vries remarried in 1943 to Lou Stoumen and gave birth to a second daughter, Toby, in 1946. Stouman and De Vries divorced in 1949.
De Vries is remembered for her work as a public health nurse in Mexico. Before living in Mexico, De Vries joined the Communist Party in 1935. Two years later, in 1937, she volunteered to travel to Spain with the Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy, which provided medical care for the international brigades and Spanish anti-fascist fighters during the Spanish Civil War. Upon her return to the United States, De Vries embarked on a fundraising lecture tour.
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