From an account written by D. Joan (Greany) Martin on August 4, 2002

During 1948-50, I was in Mannheim, Germany, as a Dependent School Detachment teacher, an exceptionally mind-opening and emotionally charged two years. Returning to Detroit in 1950, I had taught again for nearly a year when Irene (J. Malcolm Greany’s wife) came with her two small sons, Michael and Dennis, to visit her parents and ours. (She and Malcolm had lived in Juneau since shortly after their marriage in 1938.) When the time came for Irene and the boys to return home, I went with them.

Years earlier Mal [Malcolm Greany] had worked in the laundry of the Hospital of St. Ann; Irene had her stint there as well. So it was in near family tradition that I begin there, too. At first, I worked with the Indian women “doing” sheets, then came ironing and a promotion to the various pieces of the nuns’ habits and items of Father Robert Whelan’s wardrobe. When, one day, I was asked if I would be interested in working in the children’s ward, the answer was an emphatic “yes”!

I would arrive in the early evening in time to collect the children’s dinner trays and send them below via a primitive dumb waiter. I helped restore order, cleaned bedside tables and floors, emptied the trash, and made a raid on the comic books strewn by the hundreds on a dolly in the hallway. Although whatever I did was wholly distinct from child care, I was none-the-less continually becoming more acquainted with the children.

One day I overheard the head nurse, Mrs. McGowan, mention to a doctor that the Juneau School would be sending a teacher “over again” for the coming school year. Armed with credentials, I headed for the office of Mr. Sears, then Superintendent of Schools, to apply for the job. Thus, I returned to the children as their teacher. I taught them through the school year, 1951-52; then, as an Alaska Department of Health employee, remained through the summer as their occupational therapist. It was serendipitous fun for Malcolm and me when, at the request of the ADH, he came to photograph the school and therapy program in the Chronic Disease Ward.

For the first year or so of this time, I lived with my brother and his family up on Evergreen, between Reynalds and Bergens, with Shattucks and Ann Coleman nearby. Malcolm had literally dug into the mountainside to build a small room for me off the Greany kitchen. When my room was needed for a nursery (Ronald was arriving), I moved to 423 Harris Street, when I remained until I returned to Germany in 1954.