Kristine Gebbie, 1943-2022
May 20, 2022
by Anna Gebbie
Kristine Elizabeth Moore Gebbie was born on June 26, 1943, in Sioux City, IA, to Irene (née Stewart) and Thomas Moore. She enrolled in St. Olaf College in 1961 because she wanted to study nursing in a Lutheran environment, and those passions guided the rest of her life. A faithful and joyful churchgoer, she was an unstoppable force who made nursing and nurses better, improved public health and pushed for the equality of women in all areas of life.
Kristine’s childhood was shaped by frequent moves due to her father’s military career–living everywhere from Panama to the Philippines and New Mexico–and stays with her maternal grandparents in Miles City, MT. She was always happy in a new place, on a boat, on horseback or when eating lefsa. Kristine earned her BSN from St. Olaf in 1965, her MSN in community mental health from UCLA in 1968 and her DrPH from the University of Michigan in 1995. After decades of being the first nurse and first woman in positions traditionally held by male doctors, she loved becoming Dr. Gebbie.
Kristine began focusing on public health and the role of nurses while still at UCLA, and continued this work at St. Louis University, where she met dear friend Peggy McComb. In 1973, she co-convened the First National Conference on the Classification of Nursing Diagnoses, and was instrumental in the creation of NANDA International in 1982. As the Oregon State Health Division Administrator (1978-89) and the Washington Secretary of Health (1989-93), Kristine was an early advocate for addressing HIV and AIDS as a public health crisis, with universal education, prevention and treatment efforts; she served on the first Presidential Commission on AIDS under Reagan, and was the first National AIDS Policy Coordinator under Clinton. Later, she focused on public health’s role in emergency preparedness and disaster response, with an emphasis on how nursing’s unique strengths could contribute.
Throughout her career, Kristine was involved in higher education, lecturing regularly and publishing more than 270 articles and other works. She was the Elizabeth Standish Gill Professor at the Columbia University School of Nursing and Director of Columbia’s Center for Health Policy (1994-2008), and Dean of the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing (2008-10). In retirement, she served as an adjunct professor at both Flinders University’s Torrens Resilience Institute and the University of Adelaide School of Nursing, and on the board of the Australian Lutheran College. Her papers were donated to the Columbia University Health Sciences Library. Kristine was on more boards and received more honors than can be listed here, but was particularly proud of her time as president of the Lutheran AIDS Network and to be a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Nursing and the New York Academy of Medicine.
Kristine was married to Neil Gebbie from 1965-1989, and to Lester Wright from 1994-2022. She and Les shared a passion for travel; after retiring to Australia, they spent a decade visiting as many places as they could, from Uganda to Antarctica to Svalbard to Vietnam to walking Spain’s Camino de Santiago. They loved very long ocean voyages, and repeatedly visited the Himalayas and the Galapagos.
Kristine died on May 17, 2022, briefly predeceased by her beloved husband. During her final months of hospitalization, she delighted in mentoring the nurses and administrators caring for her. She is survived by her sister Sina Ann (Fernando) Mercado; her children Anna Gebbie (Robert Guay), Jason (Jessica) Wright, Sharon Eileen Gebbie (Carla Barnwell), Nathan Wright (Amy Richardson, divorced) and Eric (Lindsay) Gebbie; 10 grandchildren; 1 great-granddaughter; her nephew Kevin Kellogg, and many nieces, nephews and cousins. Kristine was a lifelong knitter, and a very personal part of her legacy are the numerous sweaters and blankets she made for everyone she loved.
Kristine’s childhood was shaped by frequent moves due to her father’s military career–living everywhere from Panama to the Philippines and New Mexico–and stays with her maternal grandparents in Miles City, MT. She was always happy in a new place, on a boat, on horseback or when eating lefsa. Kristine earned her BSN from St. Olaf in 1965, her MSN in community mental health from UCLA in 1968 and her DrPH from the University of Michigan in 1995. After decades of being the first nurse and first woman in positions traditionally held by male doctors, she loved becoming Dr. Gebbie.
Kristine began focusing on public health and the role of nurses while still at UCLA, and continued this work at St. Louis University, where she met dear friend Peggy McComb. In 1973, she co-convened the First National Conference on the Classification of Nursing Diagnoses, and was instrumental in the creation of NANDA International in 1982. As the Oregon State Health Division Administrator (1978-89) and the Washington Secretary of Health (1989-93), Kristine was an early advocate for addressing HIV and AIDS as a public health crisis, with universal education, prevention and treatment efforts; she served on the first Presidential Commission on AIDS under Reagan, and was the first National AIDS Policy Coordinator under Clinton. Later, she focused on public health’s role in emergency preparedness and disaster response, with an emphasis on how nursing’s unique strengths could contribute.
Throughout her career, Kristine was involved in higher education, lecturing regularly and publishing more than 270 articles and other works. She was the Elizabeth Standish Gill Professor at the Columbia University School of Nursing and Director of Columbia’s Center for Health Policy (1994-2008), and Dean of the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing (2008-10). In retirement, she served as an adjunct professor at both Flinders University’s Torrens Resilience Institute and the University of Adelaide School of Nursing, and on the board of the Australian Lutheran College. Her papers were donated to the Columbia University Health Sciences Library. Kristine was on more boards and received more honors than can be listed here, but was particularly proud of her time as president of the Lutheran AIDS Network and to be a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Nursing and the New York Academy of Medicine.
Kristine was married to Neil Gebbie from 1965-1989, and to Lester Wright from 1994-2022. She and Les shared a passion for travel; after retiring to Australia, they spent a decade visiting as many places as they could, from Uganda to Antarctica to Svalbard to Vietnam to walking Spain’s Camino de Santiago. They loved very long ocean voyages, and repeatedly visited the Himalayas and the Galapagos.
Kristine died on May 17, 2022, briefly predeceased by her beloved husband. During her final months of hospitalization, she delighted in mentoring the nurses and administrators caring for her. She is survived by her sister Sina Ann (Fernando) Mercado; her children Anna Gebbie (Robert Guay), Jason (Jessica) Wright, Sharon Eileen Gebbie (Carla Barnwell), Nathan Wright (Amy Richardson, divorced) and Eric (Lindsay) Gebbie; 10 grandchildren; 1 great-granddaughter; her nephew Kevin Kellogg, and many nieces, nephews and cousins. Kristine was a lifelong knitter, and a very personal part of her legacy are the numerous sweaters and blankets she made for everyone she loved.