Santa Fe Living Treasures – Elder Stories

Rheua was eighteen when she was chosen by Jane Addams to work with Chicago's poor at Hull House. There she initiated a Meals on Wheels program and began a pilot study for the United States Public Health Service. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1917 from the University of Chicago, the school where social work had its beginnings.

In 1930, Rheua moved to Las Vegas to recover from tuberculosis. She was fifty when she joined the Women's Army Corps during World War II. After the war, Rheua traveled in the Balkans as a welfare officer doing relief work for the United Nations. She also visited nine European countries as a member of the Women's International Democratic Federation.

Please see Volume 1 for complete text.
Photo ©1997 by Joanne Rijmes