Interview with Barbara Thorne

Interview with Barbara Thorne

Ambler, Chase P., 1865-1932

Great Smoky Mountains National Park (N.C. and Tenn.)

National parks and reserves

Sanatoriums

Thorne, Barbara Ambler, 1903-1998 -- Interviews

Tuberculosis -- Patients -- North Carolina -- Asheville

Medicine

Barbara Thorne talks about her father, Dr. Chase P. Ambler, and his career treating tuberculosis patients in Asheville in the early 1900s. Dr. Ambler first came to the area on his honeymoon in 1889 and fell in love with the mountains. He returned a few years later to work with Dr. Karl Von Ruck, later building his own hospital, Ambler Heights Sanatorium. Barbara recalls her father as being meticulous in his patients' care and in the operation of the hospital. Dr. Ambler died in 1932, but other local doctors continued to send their patients to Ambler Heights until it closed in 1941. Dr. Ambler was one of the first advocates for establishing a national park in the southern Appalachians that would become the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Mt. Ambler, a knob on the Appalachian Trail, is named after him and land dedicated in his memory sits at the edge of the Curtis Creek tract. A favorite hike for locals takes in the remains of his family's summer home, Rattlesnake Lodge, intersecting the Mountains to Sea Trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Thorne, Barbara Ambler, 1903-1998

WCU Mountain Heritage Center Oral Histories

Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC 28723

1900s (Decade); 1910s; 1920s; 1930s;

1996-08-16

Mansfield, William

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

audio/mp3; application/pdf;

sound recordings

transcripts

interviews

eng

Sound

Text

36290

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/36290

2015-05-22

All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina U, Cullowhee, NC 28723;

Buncombe County (N.C.)

Great Smoky Mountains National Park (N.C. and Tenn.)

Great Smoky Mountains (N.C. and Tenn.)

Asheville (N.C.)

00:31:44 (sound recording)(duration)

11 pages (transcript)(duration)

Oral Histories of Western North Carolina