Leona Baumgartner became a member of Pi Beta Phi at the University of Kansas where her father was a member of the faculty. She immersed herself in activities including acting in a number of theatrical productions and managing the K.U. Follies. Baumgartner served on the Y.W.C.A. cabinet, Panhellenic Council and as president of the House Presidents’ Council and Student Government Council.
Pi Beta Phi, University of Kansas, 1922 (astute Pi Phis will find a future GP in this photo, too)
As President of the Pi Phi chapter, she attended the 1921 Convention which took place in Charlevoix, Michigan. After convention, she camped with Pi Phis at Camp Panhellenic for two weeks. There they assisted a farmer whose cherries needed picking. And making use of her theatrical experience, the group put on a play and raised $125 for a junior high school.
Her B.A. was in Bacteriology and she graduated with Phi Beta Kappa, Mortar Board and Sigma Xi honors. She earned a Master’s degree in Immunology.
From 1925-27, she served as Pi Phi’s Eta Province President, supervising several chapters. From 1923-28, she taught high school, junior college and at the University of Montana. On April 28, 1927, Founders’ Day, she and three Pi Phis in Missoula, Montana, “had dinner together with the ‘winest’ carnations that we could find. Wine and blue place cards in an arrow design were also used. And we all felt a very deep love for Pi Beta Phi. We hope to do it again no matter how many or how few of us there are,” she wrote to the Arrow.
Baumgartner then spent a year in Germany in graduate study. When she returned home, she enrolled in Yale University’s Public Health Ph.D. program, which she earned in 1932. She earned a medical degree in 1934. She interned in pediatrics for two years. Baumgartner won the 1934-35 Pi Beta Phi Fellowship for graduate study. While at Yale she took part in the activities of the Connecticut Alumnae Club.
After a short stint in the U.S. Public Health Service, in 1937, she began working at the New York City Department of Health as a medical instructor in child and school hygiene. In 1942, she married Nathaniel Elias, a chemical engineer, but she kept her professional name.
Bronxville Review Press (NY), April 23, 1942
Baumgartner worked her way through the NYC Department of Health. Named NYC Commissioner of Health in 1954, she held the position until 1962. In 1956, a photo in which she and Dr. Harold Fuerst inoculated Elvis Presley with the Salk polio vaccine was published. Presley was 21 years old and ever so sexy. The photo went viral, or the 1956 equivalent of viral, and it prompted U.S. teens to get the vaccine. The rates of teen inoculation for polio were 0.6% before the photo was taken in October 1956. By April 1957, the teen rates of inoculation had jumped to 80%.
While working as Commissioner of Health, she taught at several institutions including Columbia University, Cornell Medical College, and the Harvard University School of Public Health. She retired from Harvard in 1972. The National Academy of Sciences awarded her its Public Welfare Medal in 1977 and other organizations honored her as well.
Nathaniel Elias died in 1964. Six years later, Baumgartner married Dr. Alexander Langmuir. She died in 1991 at age 89.
