In October 2023, I had the pleasure of presenting a paper at the North American Division’s Women in Adventist History Conference. My paper, “The Invisible Seventh-day Adventist Medical Cadet Corps: Women in a Man’s World,” briefly explored the lives of four women who at one time or another were involved in the Medical Cadet Corps between 1938 and 1958. Limited to only twenty minutes in which to speak, my research retrieved far more material than I had time to share then. Thus, it is my privilege in this article, and in others in this series, to more fully explore the lives and contributions of these four women in addition to two more women who should have been included in the original presentation. The other stories in this series include:
- Part 1: Verna Lucille Robson
- Part 2: Kathryn Luella Jenson Nelson
- Part 3: Josephine Rose Steinkraus Stone
- Part 4: Marion G. Seitz Simmons
- Part 5: Arlene Naomi Church Seitz
When Everett Dick became director of Medical Cadet Corps (MCC) training for the General Conference in 1941, he worked out of his home. By default, his wife, Opal Wheeler Dick, became his office assistant, a position she held until he retired from the MCC in 1958.
Born on April 28, 1901, in Ottawa, Kansas, Opal Elree Wheeler, was the daughter of John and Esther Wheeler, farmers with roots in Iowa. She trained as a teacher at Ottawa High School. Despite being denied a teaching certificate because she refused to test on Sabbath, the Kansas Conference still hired her to teach church school. She attended the Ottawa Business College and then enrolled in Union College’s commerce course from which she graduated in 1923. She married Everett on August 15 that same year. Her education allowed her to alternately teach church school and work as a secretary as she followed her husband from Missouri to Iowa, and then Wisconsin. When they returned to Union College, she taught in the commerce department until their three children were born. Thus, when Everett accepted leadership of the denomination-wide MCC, Opal was available to assist him.
In 1951, the Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan conferences in Canada, invited Everett Dick to lead an MCC training camp. At Camp Almansask (a moniker created from an amalgamation of the three provinces’ names) in 1951, Opal’s assistance earned her the honorary title of “lieutenant colonel.” Tucked in nearly at the end of an article about this camp is this sentence: “Mrs. E. N. Dick did the secretarial work of the camp, and her gracious ways won her the esteem and respect of all.”
Her own husband called her the XO or executive officer, the military term for the junior officer who serves a senior officer as office manager. From 1951 to 1958, the Dicks managed an international organization from their home in the College View community of Lincoln. Everett was on the road frequently, sometimes traveling internationally for months at a time. During those periods, Opal managed all correspondence and orders for MCC materials, making decisions on her husband’s behalf. How much, if anything, she was paid for this work is yet to be determined.
If Everett Dick had been willing to move to Takoma Park, Maryland, and work out of the General Conference office building, he may have availed himself of the services of a paid secretary. However, he served as director of the Medical Cadet Corps only as long as he was allowed to work from his home in Lincoln, Nebraska. Thus, his wife, Opal Wheeler Dick became secretary, albeit one who, perhaps, was not always paid.
There is record of her being paid an hourly rate for her work at Camp Doss in the summer of 1953. But that is not the only year she worked at Camp Doss as is evident from this photo of Everett and Opal Dick posing with eighteen cadets from the Central Union at Camp Doss, held June 29 to July 13, 1954.
Opal Wheeler is the only woman amongst a group of Medical Cadet Corps cadets from the Central Union in 1954.
After Everett Dick’s resignation from the Medical Cadet Corps, he returned to full-time teaching at Union College. Opal joined the the Central Union Conference, where she served as secretary of the education department until 1966. However, Opal’s talents extended into other areas. She not only assisted her husband with his book manuscripts, but she was the author of books for children and many magazine articles in church papers as well. She also wrote scripts and directed pageants for local church and conference programs, and was an active member of the College View Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Because Everett Dick was a historian and well aware of the lasting significance of the MCC, he kept his papers, including hundreds of letters and photographs. Among them are letters written by Opal. She also appears in many MCC photographs. Thus, of all the women involved in the MCC, she is the one woman whose contribution to the MCC is best documented.
