Sixty Years of Care, Around the Globe

In the Beginning

Kellerman’s journey to the hygienist’s chair started as a child, when her love of candy sent her to the dentist’s chair for frequent cavity care. Later on, she graduated to wearing braces with headgear. She recalls car trips to the orthodontist's office two towns away, with her mom serving as chauffeur to her and her girlfriends.

When she entered dental hygiene school after graduating high school in 1964, Forsyth was in its first year as a part of Northeastern University, having previously been part of Tufts University. Kellerman commuted with some ‘Northeastern boys’ who picked her up early each day from her family home in Malden. Many of her classmates in the two-year program hailed from out of state and as far away as California; the residential students then were known as ‘live-ins.’

Kellerman remembers fondly the first patient she ever treated—a little red-haired boy—and her favorite professors and instructors, including Barbara Schulze, Marguerite Prioli, Dr. Ralph Lobene, Dr. Martin Dunn, and Dr. Edward Maloof, who was also the team dentist for the Boston Red Sox.

“I remember he introduced me to Frank Malzone, but I had no idea who he was,” she says of the late third baseman, who played 10 years in Fenway Park.

Clinical experiences in year two took her to Boston City Hospital, Brookline Health Center, Harvard Dental School, a home for young unwed mothers, and a special needs school. The required dress was a white dress uniform with white pantyhose, polished white ‘nurse shoes,’ and a white plain linen cap. There was no hygienist’s chair; all care was delivered while standing up. There were no latex gloves, masks, or magnifying loupes.

After graduating, Kellerman’s first job was for a private practice over the Jordan Marsh department store in Malden Square, where she rode the bus to the office six days a week for a paycheck of $125.

She worked for a variety of offices through the years—including Fort Devens military base and public health clinics in Boston—and became a staunch advocate for fluoridation, tobacco cessation, and access to care for all.

A Passion for Prevention and Public Health

Kellerman’s penchant for advocacy began in childhood, and she entertained thoughts of becoming a foreign diplomat until settling on dental hygiene as her path. Forsyth reinforced the interest during a school trip to the Massachusetts State House to testify on a hot topic of the 1960s: fluoridating the Boston water supply.

Kellerman married her passions for the public good and prevention by delivering dental hygiene education programs in schools and local libraries. She volunteered at a homeless shelter, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, in downtown Boston in the 1970s, and for Lazarus House, on a mobile bus in and around Lawrence. She also worked for several years for the Cambridge Health Alliance, treating mostly immigrant patients.

“My first day there, I remember hearing all of the different languages,” she shares. “There were translators on staff, or patients could use a special phone to get language help.”

She also brought her know-how to the prison system, where her prevention education and dental exams aimed to improve oral health among inmates.

When the national fluoridation debate arrived to Billerica in 1991—where she and her husband, Arthur, a schoolteacher, were raising their daughter, Beth—she partnered with local dentist offices to collect more than 10,000 signatures and get fluoridation on the local ballot. She succeeded in passing it in all 10 precincts in town, and Billerica began fluoridating its water supply.

“I’m glad that fluoride use has evolved so much, and that I had something to do with it,” she says, smiling. “My own daughter has never had a cavity.”

Those years of advocacy earned Kellerman a spot in the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine at Boston University, where she earned a Master’s of Science in Dental Public Health at age 40.

As a member of the Massachusetts Dental Hygienists Association (MDHA), she spoke to the state legislature on tobacco issues and access to healthcare for all, and would serve as MDHA President from 1995-1996. She’s attended more than 50 Yankee Dental Congress events—and helped to plan many of them—and has traveled extensively across the U.S. to pursue continuing education and deliver courses in tobacco cessation, oral cancer, and infection control.

“That’s really how I got to see this country,” says Kellerman, whose favorite book happens to be "Oh the Places You’ll Go" by Dr. Seuss. A map hanging in the Kellerman home is sprinkled with pins indicating every place she’s been.

That love of travel, coupled with her personal motto, has served her well: “Try everything once.”

Impact Around the Globe

Internationally, Kellerman’s know-how and inclination to say “yes” landed her on two People to People delegations with the American Dental Hygienists Association—first to China, and then to Russia and Poland.

“I remember bringing floss to China and teaching them how to use it,” she says.

Working with the nonprofit Project Stretch, she participated in a number of children’s dental missions, to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cape Verde, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ukraine (where she helped to introduce sealants), and Honduras (where she helped open a dental clinic).

“In one of the places we went, it was so remote that the medical doctor delivered the babies and pulled the teeth,” she recalls.

On the Africa trip, the lead dentist handed her a pressure cooker and directed her to an open fire for sterilizing the instruments. The children there were given a green, yellow, or red wristband to designate the level of care needed; red meant there were teeth to be pulled.

She also pitched in to volunteer after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005. On some of these trips, she’s enjoyed the company of fellow Forsyth alum Gail Weisberg ’74.

The best part of each mission, she says, is always the same: “The people.”

Still Making a Difference

Kellerman’s work serving the homeless and underserved is in part the reason she was honored with the 2007 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Forsyth Alumni Association. It’s also the inspiration for her “semi-retired” pursuits today, working in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to bring dental hygiene care to homebound patients in her area.

Though she’s decades removed from her Forsyth days, the school remains close to her heart—whether she’s attending a Corporation meeting, giving generously to the Boston clinic (where she donated a dental hygiene chair), or gathering friends for another Golden Graduates Reunion.

She presently serves as Historian of her MDHA Association and helps plan Dental Hygiene Month events each October. And retirement? Well, that can wait. As Kellerman puts it: “I don’t think I’ll ever retire.”