Recognizing women of Arizona
Helene Thomas Bennett arrived in Yuma in 1926 with a Masters in bacteriology to start a medical laboratory. She soon discovered that the Yuma City Council refused to provide her lab equipment because of a quarrel they had with the Yuma City Health Officer. Undaunted, Bennett borrowed $200 from her mother and with donated equipment from some local doctors she opened the Yuma Clinical Laboratory, later known as Thomas Laboratories. It eventually became the second largest institution of its kind in Arizona.
As an early businesswoman in an unusual profession, Bennett needed more than laboratory skills as she worked to overcome antagonism toward the health measures she fought to implement in Yuma. For example, she was appalled at the high levels of bacteria in the milk produced in a local dairy. The dairy owner put pressure on the newspaper to stop publishing the results of her tests, so she posted them on her laboratory window where everyone could see them. Her reports triggered public pressure which resulted in an inspection of the businessman’s dairy by the state dairy commissioner. She was responsible for passage of the first Yuma milk ordinance to prevent the marketing of unclean milk.
Yuma took its water supply from the Colorado River, at that time polluted with sewage from campers and other cities. She persuaded the city to test and chlorinate its water, thereby eliminating annual bouts of typhoid fever and dysentery. She