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| Helen
Killeen Peet, D.C. On Dec. 22, 2003, Peet passed away from natural causes in her Burlington, Vt., home at the age of 82. She is survived by her husband Dr. Nelson Peet, four children, Dr. Paul Peet, Dr. Palmer Peet, Dr. Parry Peet and Dr. Paula Peet, and eight grandchildren. She is predeceased by her son Peter Peet. |
Dr. Helen Peet: "Grandmother of Pediatric Chiropractic"
By Pattie Stechshulte
While Helen Peet, D.C., was a student at Palmer College of Chiropractic, she witnessed an instructor adjust a little baby in class that was a day or two old and she proceeded to tell her husband Nelson that this was what she wanted to do with her life.
“She fell in love with adjusting kids,” said Nelson. She focused on caring for children and women when the two started their practice in Beacon, N.Y. “As the years went by,” said her husband, “we started calling her the grandmother of pediatric chiropractic.”
Along with her husband, she traveled around the United States and Canada lecturing on pediatric chiropractic and practice management through the Drs. Peet & Peet Personalized Planning Principles system.
“Early on in her career, she specialized in the care of women and children, a specialty way ahead of its time. She also was responsible for helping fellow chiropractors improve how they served their little patients,” said Palmer Peet, D.C., her son. “She taught hundreds of other DCs how to correct subluxation in pediatric patients.”
Helen also wrote many articles on pediatrics and philosophy for this magazine and she wrote a regular column dealing with pediatric chiropractic in the ICA Review. The Peets also taught a module in the pediatric certification seminar held at Life University which was a joint venture with the International Chiropractic Pediatrics Association in the 1990s.
In the Beginning
Helen was born into a chiropractic dynasty. Her father, John
Killeen, D.C., was a chiropractic pioneer who graduated from Palmer School of
Chiropractic in 1913 under the tutelage of B.J. Palmer, D.C. He set up some
of the first chiropractic offices in the Hudson Valley area and finally a large
practice in Newburgh, N.Y.
In a previous article, Dr. Peet credited her father’s success with being “built on a reputation following a sound philosophy, a truthful presentation and a delivery system that was unmatched. Witnessing his work as a chiropractor under those circumstances instilled strong values in my two brothers and myself.”
Dr. Killeen’s brother Joseph and his sister Alice became chiropractors along with Peet’s brothers John and James. Helen, however, was a talented artist and decided to pursue a bachelor’s degree in art education at Syracuse University where she met her husband Nelson, an engineering student, on a blind date. They married after they graduated but Nelson was involved in a automobile accident that involved two fatalities. He survived but began suffering migraines and trouble with his sciatic nerve. “Her father straightened me out and I decided that I liked chiropractic, so she said ‘Let’s go to Palmer.’ Off we went, starting all over again,” remembered Nelson.
“When we arrived at the school on a Sunday morning, we saw this gentleman sweeping the walk out in front with a notebook in his hand, with a short cigar, and wearing sandals,” said Nelson.” “We taught that was kind of unusual, but I asked him if Dr. B.J. Palmer was around. He said, ‘You are looking at him.’”
They became close friends and colleagues with B.J. for his remaining years. Helen drew illustrations for three of his books; she redesigned his health booklets and helped him start a monthly chiropractic magazine which eventually became the ICA Review. They were the first couple team that ever spoke at the annual Lyceum and Helen was the first woman to speak back in 1959.
Adding to the Legacy
After the couple graduated from Palmer, they started a practice in Beacon, N.Y.,
which was across the river from Newburgh where her father practiced.
The nuns at her alma mater, Mount St. Mary’s Catholic Academy, asked her to take over for her dad in taking care of them. “One of her nuns had five operations on her spine and was in braces, “ Nelson said. “Helen worked on her to get the braces off and she was so happy to be free of all that.”
In the first years of their practice, there was a big polio scare in the early 1950s. “I can recall many nights we stayed all night long at the bedside some of the little kids keeping the fevers down and no polio developed,” he recalled. “It is amazing the touch she had.”
The Peets had four children, three of whom became chiropractors who are devoting themselves to the same principles of that guided their parents and grandfather.
At last count, there were 14 chiropractors in the family and a few grandchildren who are expressing an interest in chiropractic. They are an expressive chiropractic family who believes in the principles of life and health; it’s a true testament to her legacy.
“It was wonderful to know how one person affected so many thousands of people and how it goes so far,” Nelson said.
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