Naomi’s calling in Buckhorn—and my return fifty years later
In October 2026, I stood looking at a long wooden swinging bridge over the Kentucky River near Buckhorn. Fifty years earlier, Naomi had crossed that bridge to visit a patient.
I had heard the story. Now I could see the crossing for myself.
As I looked at the wooden slats stretching across the river, I wondered how Naomi must have felt when she first stood there. She was about twenty-six, a young nurse serving people in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Someone on the other side needed a visit, and reaching that person meant crossing the bridge.
I was eighty-six. Looking at the same bridge, I felt the distance between our ages—and a new closeness to that part of her life.
A nurse in the Hollers
Before she became my wife, Naomi Koerwitz was a registered nurse seeking a way to put her Christian faith into practice. Urbana and the Frontier Nursing Service had helped encourage her interest in service. Although she did not pursue midwifery with the Frontier Nursing Service, her path brought her to Buckhorn.
From 1974 to 1977, she worked alongside Lucille LeBeau, a nurse-midwife, at a small rural health clinic in Buckhorn, Kentucky. With her Jeep, Naomi traveled up the hollers to make home visits, including visits to mothers and babies.
In these communities, reaching medical care could be difficult. A nurse’s visit brought care into the home, where she could meet people in the circumstances of their daily lives.
Naomi’s Christian faith gave purpose to her work. She used her training to care for people, treating them with dignity and compassion. Those years became a cherished part of her story and helped prepare her for her later work in public health.
In 1976, Naomi crossed the long wooden swinging footbridge to visit Verna Farler. Naomi had written the patient’s name and the year on the back of the original photograph. That photograph shows Naomi with a wheelbarrow and nursing supplies—a record of how she brought what she needed for the visit.
I cannot describe everything that happened during that visit. I do not know what Naomi thought as she crossed or what words passed between her and Verna. But I know the central fact: she crossed the bridge to visit a patient.
That is enough to make me stop and consider what faithful service can look like.
Returning to the Crossing
During my October trip, I attended “Walking With God Through the Seasons of Life” at The Cove, taught by Doug Sauder, October 2–4. Afterward, I returned to Hazard and Buckhorn, places that had meant so much to Naomi.
With help from a post office clerk who knew the area, and by using Google Maps, I found the bridge near Kentucky Highway 315, outside Buckhorn in Breathitt County. Although it looks a little different from the bridge in Naomi’s original photograph, it is the same bridge and location.
I took a new photograph to place alongside the original in this story. Together, the two pictures connect Naomi’s patient visit in 1976 with my return in October 2026.
I walked about twenty feet onto it and stopped.
I was alone. The bridge looked safe to me, but I was conscious of my age and cautious about continuing. I also enjoy taking photographs, and I could imagine dropping my phone while trying to walk and take pictures over the wooden slats.
Perhaps I will walk farther another time, especially if someone is with me. On this visit, those twenty feet were enough.
Standing there, I tried to picture Naomi at twenty-six. What had she seen? Had she hesitated? Or had this simply been another part of her day’s work?
Those questions remain unanswered. I want to preserve her story faithfully, without filling its quiet places with details I cannot know.
Later, I returned to the bridge once more. I walked down the gravel road to the place where trucks cross the river, then walked back. It was good exercise, but it was also another opportunity to spend time in a place that had become meaningful to me.
One calling, one visit
I have been thinking about God’s will. Is it like a rifle, aimed at one exact target we must somehow discover? Or is it a wider area in which we have room to respond faithfully?
Naomi’s visit helps me see how a broad calling can become a specific act.
Her calling was to follow Christ and use her nursing skills in service to others. Her work in Buckhorn gave that calling a setting. That day, it took the form of visiting one patient on the other side of a river.
She may not have regarded crossing the bridge as a defining moment. It may have been an ordinary part of doing what a nurse needed to do. Yet ordinary faithfulness can reveal the convictions that shape a life.
A mission becomes visible through such actions. A desire to care for people becomes a journey up a holler, a home visit, attention to a mother and baby, or a crossing to someone who needs help.
What continues
My return also brought opportunities to connect with people who are serving these communities today.
I spoke with a woman who had lived next to Naomi and Lucille in the 1970s and still lives there. She remembered Naomi, and I recorded some of our conversation. Hearing someone else remember her brought another part of those years close to me. She remembered Naomi coming over and helping her hang wash on the clothes line!
At Little Flower Clinic in Hazard, I supported the weekly free meal outreach for people in need. Back in Buckhorn, I attended the monthly Bible release-time from The Buckhorn School. A bus takes the children – third- and fourth-graders to Camp Rufus. All things that Naomi would have done or both of us if we had both been living there
There is also a memorial bench at Buckhorn School in Naomi’s memory, and I am establishing a scholarship to help a student pursue nursing or another healthcare profession.
I cannot measure the lasting influence of Naomi’s visits fifty years ago. I do not know all the families she helped or how they remember her. But I can preserve the stories we have and encourage acts of care today.
I see God’s faithfulness in Naomi’s life and in the life we shared. I also recognize that providence contains mysteries. Finding the bridge does not tell me everything God wants me to do next. It gives me something to receive with gratitude, reflect upon, and share.
For the generations to come
Naomi and I were married for forty-five years. She went to be with the Lord on November 8, 2024. As I write her story for our children, grandchildren, and generations still to come, I want them to know the woman we loved—and to consider the faith that gave direction to her life.
I want them to picture the young nurse driving her Jeep into the hollers. I want them to understand that serving people sometimes required finding a way to reach them.
And I want them to remember that bridge.
Fifty years earlier, Naomi crossed it to visit a patient. Fifty years later, I stood there and asked what her example might teach me about my own next faithful step.
Where has God placed us? What skills and opportunities has He entrusted to us? Who needs the care we can offer?
Naomi’s story invites those questions. My hope is that its legacy will continue through people who answer them with love.
Lord, thank You for Naomi’s life and for the people she cared for in Buckhorn. Help me preserve her story truthfully and carry forward the compassion we shared. Give our children and the generations after them hearts willing to serve You wherever You place them. Show each of us our next faithful step. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Pictures of the bridge.
The road was widened from a narrow gravel road 50 years ago to a asphalt paved still narrow road. The bridge was repaired…don’t know when. And safety netting on the sides!
The workman parks his pickup at the bridge, crosses over. When the logs are trucked out, the truck crosses the river…when the water is low. Not safe to take pickup across the riverbed. Undercarriage could be damaged.
It is the same bridge as in the original picture. It had been reconstructed by previous owners and the house in the original picture burndt down.
Naomi on the left. Lucille on the right. Christmas time last year Naomi was in Buckhorn. Took Lucille home for Christmas.
