Bee: Author, Speaker

Having witnessed suffering she can never unsee, Bee Bloeser’s perspective colors everything — her life, her writing, and her speaking.

Drawing on four-plus decades of clinical practice as a licensed, ASHA-certified medical speech-language pathologist, but especially as an eyewitness to public health history, Bee is now an award-winning author and sought-after speaker whose work sits at the intersection of that history and vivid personal memory.

Bee first began dreaming of living in Africa at age ten. Her master’s degree still warm under her arm, her dream came true when her husband’s role with USAID and CDC took them to Africa with their toddler and preschooler in tow. The two-year experience was both more rewarding and more terrifying than anything she could have imagined. 

To be embedded with the global campaign to eradicate smallpox. To watch even ravaged victims in Nigeria emotionally salute the smallpox truck in gratitude as it passed. And then to know that no one will ever again suffer that same fate—there are no words. How could her life ever be the same?

In their second posting, while “representing the United States of America,” Bee had to stay calm and cooperate with bayonet-wielding soldiers in her living room during unpacking. That was only an introduction to a year-long experience of newly independent Equatorial Guinea. She kept cryptic notes and hid them in the sock drawer. Through it all, she carried the weight, and the great privilege, of being a small part of public health history.

Equipped with vivid memories and her personal archives of notes, letters, cables, film and official reports, Bloeser speaks and writes about this personal story set alongside the public triumph of the global eradication of smallpox. Her historical memoir, Vaccines & Bayonets: Fighting Smallpox in Africa amid Tribalism, Terror and the Cold War, receives high praise. 

A life in motion

Bee has lived in West Africa, the Middle East, and on Native American nations. She spent five decades both in and alongside healthcare, and now — through her writing and speaking — she passionately practices “health education,” sharing her personal story alongside the public triumph of the global eradication of smallpox.

Outside of her work, Bee is devoted to family, friends and her church community, enjoys travel, and volunteers at a horse rescue. She loves to sing and is a former member of a women’s barbershop quartet — which tells you something about her range. She is a member of Toastmasters, P.E.O., and the USAID Alumni Association.