She frequently adapts true life stories, such as in \u201cThe Peace Bell,\u201d celebrating friendship between the U.S. and Japan, and \u201cVillage of Scoundrels,\u201d based on the true story of the French villagers who saved thousands of Jews during World War II.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI am really drawn to stories about real people and people who acted with courage and integrity during difficult times,\u201d she said. \u201cI think they\u2019re very interesting for children to be able to see what other young people have done.\u201d<\/p>\n
That included youngsters who were delivered as babies by the intrepid physician and who decided to pay it forward by raising pennies to build a hospital \u2014 and succeeded. Preus shared her telling of \u201cSnowshoe Kate and the Hospital Built for Pennies<\/a>\u201d with WPR\u2019s Robin Washington on \u201cMorning Edition\u201d ahead of the book\u2019s Oct. 28 release.<\/p>\n The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.<\/p>\n Robin Washington: Two of your books, \u201cThe Peace Bell\u201d and \u201cHeart of a Samurai,\u201d are Japanese-related, and \u201cVillage of Scoundrels\u201d is based in Europe. This one is set closer to home. How did you find out about Dr. Kate?<\/p>\n Margi Preus: I think I just bumped into it. There\u2019s a very cute little video the Wisconsin Historical Society put out about her. That piqued my interest and made me want to find out more. <\/p>\n I found there are a couple of other books about her, one for younger readers and one for adults. And then I visited the museum. So I tried to learn as much as I could about her.<\/p>\n RW: She was born in 1885 and, after some trials and tribulations, finally became a physician. She practiced in Detroit, then moved to northern Wisconsin for its cleaner air to help her husband convalesce from illness. But she got back into being a doctor in response to a neighbor\u2019s medical emergency.<\/p>\n MP: Yes. She did not think she was going to be a doctor again, partly because she had lost her first baby due to a doctor\u2019s error. That made her kind of angry at doctors, including herself.<\/p>\n RW: You have a passage in the book that picks up the story from there.<\/p>\n MP: \u201cWhen a snowbound neighbor was in danger of dying of pneumonia, Kate responded to the need like a retired fire horse when it hears the alarm. Bill, her husband, drove her as close to the neighbor\u2019s house as he could, then she snowshoed the rest of the way. Once there, she rigged up a homemade vaporizer out of a kerosene lamp, a tomato can, and some wire. The device cleared the woman\u2019s lungs and saved her life.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLucky for her \u2014 and lucky for us! Because after that, Kate decided to get her license to practice medicine in Wisconsin. And once she started, nothing could stop her. \u2018Before the ink was dry on my license, my telephone began to ring at all hours of the day and night,\u2019 Kate said. With Bill as her driver, she once traveled 376 miles, made 17 house calls, visited three different hospitals in three different cities, and delivered 7 babies, all in under 36 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n RW: And delivering all those babies inspired a children\u2019s campaign to raise pennies to build a hospital.<\/p>\n MP: Yes. Kate delivered almost 4,000 babies, I think. The babies grew up to be high school kids and were in class one day when their teacher asked, \u201cWhat would a million of something look like?\u201d They thought of pennies, and decided, \u201cLet\u2019s collect a million pennies.\u201d The teacher asked, \u201cWhat would you do with these million pennies?\u201d And the kids said, \u201cWe\u2019d build a hospital for Dr. Kate.\u201d<\/p>\n So they began to collect pennies and collected a million of them, which wasn\u2019t quite enough to build a hospital. So one of her friends arranged for her to go on \u201cThis Is Your Life,\u201d<\/a> the television show that would surprise someone in the audience with people from their life. Dr. Kate thought she was just going to see a show, but she was the person they were celebrating that night. And after that, pennies flowed in from all over the world. They ended up with 11 million pennies \u2014 enough to build a hospital.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SnowshoeKate1-scaled.jpg\")
Photo courtesy of Abrams Books<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SnowshoeKate2-scaled.jpg\")
Photo courtesy of Abrams Books<\/p>\n