Photo by Griffin Peterson | From left to right: Linda Heen, Carol Heen, and Peggy Kuam stand next to a picture of Doctor Kathleen Jordan, who administered around 2 million tuberculosis tests in Minnesota across her career.

HANLEY FALLS — Linda and Carol Heen gestured around the Minnesota Machinery Museum where remnants of the old Hanley Falls Public School could be seen under the knickknacks and historical documents that now made up the room.

“I was tested in this room,” Linda Heen said, pointing just two feet away from where she sat. “We happened to be in school here at the time when she was still testing, and so I vividly remember her lining them all up.”

Linda and Carol Heen are volunteers for the Dr. Kathleen Jordan project, a nonprofit organization which works to remember and celebrate the life and work of Dr. Jordan, who — according to the Jordan Project website — worked to give around 2 million tuberculosis tests in her lifetime.

According to Carol and Linda Heen, being born and raised in Europe, Jordan came to America to receive a medical degree. It was there she found a passion for treating children, and took that passion to Granite Falls in 1930. There she began her 40-year career giving tests to children across rural Minnesota.

“Kathleen changed the face of Minnesota health,” said Carol Heen. “TB is killing one person in the world today every 20 seconds. What Kathleen did was eliminate the risk, it’s why most of us in Minnesota are healthy, because of what she did with her TB testing and education.”

The Jordan Project felt her accomplishments were not being properly told or remembered, and they feared that because she was a woman, other male doctors in Minnesota were overshadowing her work, despite her accomplishing just as much, said Peggy Kuam, another Jordan Project member.

“When she graduated from Case Western Reserve University with her MD, only four out of every 100 doctors was a woman,” Carol Heen said. “A lot of medical schools would not, wouldn’t even admit her.”

Despite TB remaining very uncommon in Minnesota, according to Kuam, having less than 200 cases in Minnesota documented each year. TB remains a constant threat in other parts of the world.

“It is the number one infectious disease killer in the world right now today. It lost one year to COVID, but it’s back, it’s on the top,” said Carol Heen.

According to Linda Heen, tuberculosis can be deceptive, people can get the disease, but it won’t be active, and will instead sit encased in the body. Many live their whole lives without knowing they have the disease, n knowing unless it activates from some kind of medication or X-ray.

“If I get a certain medication that was going to break down the little protective coating over the active TB that’s inside, it’s fine and dandy there,” Linda Heen said. “But it’s when, for some reason, that skin breaks down or that shield breaks down, then it becomes active.”

In addition to raising awareness about Dr. Jordan’s life and tuberculosis, the Jordan Project also works hard on documenting patients of the various TB sanatoriums in Minnesota, providing information to anyone who knows of a family member or friend who was in these sanatoriums about their stay there as well as what level of TB they had.

“All I need is a first and last name and I can find everything on this sheet of paper,” Kuam said.

The Jordan Project is hosting a display with information about Dr. Jordan at the Hanley Falls Machinery Museum from July 1-Aug. 10. From Aug. 12-14, the Project will host a display at the Renville County Fair.