CARMEN LOUISE BOSSENBROCK

Carmen has been a Rotarian since 1987. She was the first female Paul Harris Fellow in The Rotary Club of Wenatchee and is a Paul Scea Fellow.

She knew that she wanted a career as a physical therapist before it was a widely recognized profession. After graduation from Dryden High in '47, she received a Bachelor of Science degree from Washington State University in '52 in Pre-Physical Therapy. With a $500 loan from The Rotary Club of Wenatchee, she was able to enroll at Stanford University, the nearest physical therapy program at that time. She obtained the Physical Therapy Certificate in 1953 and has state license #134 as a Physical Therapist; a profession where the licenses are now numbered in the 7,000s.

During 1955 and 1956 Carmen was the only practicing physical therapist between Seattle and Spokane and between Yakima and the Canadian border. That was a very busy period for her!

When Carmen's uncle decided to sell his 10 acre orchard property in '63, she decided to buy it and to develop an 8 acre D'Anjou Pear orchard, since the hard clay soil was perfect for pear trees. Some of the trees planted in 1909 are still bearing heavily.

She is now retired from her physical therapy career and uses the orchard as her own therapy, personally doing all of the mowing, disking and ditch-irrigation work.

Carmen lives in the family "Ready-Cut" home which was built in 1919 for a cost of $1950.

Starting with a Brownie camera in high school, Carmen has a life-long love of photography. She strives to "catch the moment" with one click of the shutter, rather than using lots of film hoping for the one right shot. She now uses a Pentax 645N and three of her scenic photographs were recently displayed at the PUD Rocky Reach Dam Gallery.

Carmen's deepest desire is that Seattle will some day have a winning sports team in football, baseball, basketball or hockey!

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