The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West (7 page)

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Authors: Chris Enss

BOOK: The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West
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By 1925 Doctor Susan Anderson had spent thirty years working in medicine. Society was more tolerant of women doctors, but she still struggled against those who simply could not accept her in this nontraditional role. In an attempt to drive Susan from practicing medicine, some men staged embarrassing office calls. One particular afternoon a tunnel worker who had been drinking maneuvered an appointment with Susan. The slightly inebriated man pointed to his fly when describing the physical problem he was having. Doctor Anderson suggested he might feel more comfortable talking with a male physician, but he insisted he needed her help. On the off chance that the man had a legitimate complaint, Susan agreed to examine him.
After being asked a few cursory questions, the man dropped his pants down around his ankles and stood staring at Susan. Unimpressed and with complete composure, she asked him what the problem was. He smiled and said, “Nothing. But ain’t it a dandy?” Susan calmly ordered the man to pull up his pants. As he did, she reached for a nearby scalpel. While he was reattaching his suspenders, she cocked her fist back and told him to get out of her office. She showed him the knife and his eyes widened. “If I ever see you again,” she warned, “I’ll slit your belly with a butcher’s knife.” Before the man left, she made him pay a $10 examination fee.
The story of the life, times, and trials of Doctor Anderson made its way to many newspapers and magazines. Readers were fascinated with the tenacity and drive of the female pioneer doctor. The celebrated actress Ethel Barrymore was among her biggest fans. She sought out and Susan offered to make a movie about her life. Susan repeatedly turned her down.
Doctor Anderson practiced medicine for more than fifty years. In 1958, at the age of eighty-eight, Susan was hospitalized and lived out the remainder of her days at Colorado General Hospital. She passed away on April 16, 1960 and was laid to rest near her brother John in the Mount Pisgah cemetery in Cripple Creek.
NELLIE MATTIE MACKNIGHT
 
BELOVED CALIFORNIA PHYSICIAN
 
 
Taken as a whole they will probably never amount to much unless
the experience of the past belies that of the future. While this is so,
yet no person of extended views or liberal ideas can desire to see the
doors of science closed against them.
—Doctor R. Beverly Cole (a prominent male
physician) in a speech delivered to members of
the California Medical Society, 1875
 
 
Eighteen-year-old Nellie Mattie MacKnight stepped confidently into the spacious dissecting room at San Francisco’s Toland Hall Medical School. Thirty-five male students, stationed around cadavers spread out on rough board tables, turned to watch the bold young woman enter. The smell of decomposing corpses mixed with the tobacco smoke wafting from the pipes of several students assaulted Nellie’s senses. Her knees weakened a bit as she strode over to her appointed area, carrying a stack of books and a soft, rawhide case filled with operating tools.
To her fellow students, Nellie was a delicate female with no business studying medicine. Determined to prove them wrong, she stood up straight, opened her copy of
Gray’s Anatomy,
and removed the medical instruments from the case.
It was the spring of 1891. She nodded politely at the future doctors, who glowered at her in return. A tall, dapper, bespectacled professor stood at the front of the classroom, watching Nellie’s every move. The sour look on his face showed his disdain for a woman’s invasion into this masculine territory. “Do you expect to graduate in medicine or are you just playing around?” he snarled. The blood rushed to Nellie’s face and she clenched her fists at her side. She had expected this kind of hostile reception when she enrolled, but was taken aback just the same. “I hope to graduate,” she replied firmly. Disgusted and seeing that Nellie could not be intimidated, the professor turned around and began writing on the massive chalkboard behind him. The students quickly switched their attention from Nellie to their studies. Nellie grinned and whispered to herself, “I will graduate, and that’s a promise.”
 
WATCHING HER CLOSEST FAMILY MEMBERS DIE FROM TYPHOID FEVER BROUGHT NELLIE MACKNIGHT TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.
 
Nellie was born to Olive and Smith MacKnight on December 15, 1873, in Petrolia, Pennsylvania. She was one of three children for the MacKnights. Their son and first daughter died shortly after they were born.
Olive was very protective of her surviving child, and Smith, a land surveyor by trade, constantly showered his “only little girl” with attention. According to her autobiography, Nellie’s early years were happy ones. She was surrounded by the love and affection of her parents and numerous extended family members.
In 1878 Smith MacKnight contracted a case of gold fever that drove him to leave his wife and child and head west. Before he left, he sent Olive and Nellie to live with his parents in New York. He promised to send for the pair once he had found gold.
Olive was distraught over the move from their home and the prospect of being without her husband. It was a heartbreaking experience from which she never fully recovered.
By the time Smith’s first letter from California arrived, five-year-old Nellie and her mother had settled into life on the MacKnight farm. The absence of Smith made Olive quiet, withdrawn, and despondent. Aside from the time spent with her daughter, she seemed content to be left alone. Nellie, on the other hand, was outgoing and cheerful. She was particularly close to her grandmother, whose character was much like her own. Grandmother MacKnight taught Nellie how to cook and quilt, and how to prepare homemade remedies for certain illnesses. Her grandfather and uncle taught her how to ride a horse and care for animals.
As Olive slipped further into depression, Nellie became more attached to her grandparents. A letter from Smith, announcing that he had purchased a mine with “great potential,” momentarily lifted Olive’s spirits and gave her hope that they might be together soon. Several days later, news that Olive and Nellie would have to wait for the mine to pay off before Smith sent for them left her devastated all over again. The dispirited woman cried herself to sleep nightly.
The stability Nellie had come to know at her grandparents’ home ended abruptly one evening in October of 1880. Her grandmother contracted typhoid fever and died after a month of suffering with the illness. Nellie watched pallbearers carry her grandmother’s wooden coffin into the cemetery. She wept bitterly, wishing there had been something she could have done to save her. The subsequent death of her favorite uncle, suffering from the same ailment, served as a catalyst for her interest in healing.
Fearing for the physical well-being of her daughter, Olive moved Nellie to her father’s home in Madrid, Pennsylvania. Any hopes the two had that their circumstances would improve at their new location were dashed when Olive became sick and collapsed. The high temperature from typhoid fever made Olive delirious. She didn’t recognize her surroundings, her family, or her child, and she cried out constantly for her husband.
Olive recovered after several weeks, but the fever and the sadness of being separated from Smith had taken its toll. Her dark hair had turned gray and the dark hollows under her eyes were permanent fixtures.
Smith’s mine in Bodie, California, had still not yielded any gold and he was unable to send any money home to support his family. In order to keep herself and Nellie fed and clothed, Olive took a job at the Warner Brothers Corset Factory. Nellie attended school and excelled in all her subjects, showing an early aptitude in medicine. She pored over books on health and the human body.
When Nellie wasn’t studying, she spent time trying to lift her mother’s melancholy spirit. Letters from Smith made Olive all the more anxious to see her husband again and even more brokenhearted about having to wait for that day to come.
She began using laudanum, a tincture of opium used as a drug, to ease the pains she had in her hands and neck. The pains in her joints were a lingering effect of the typhoid fever. Olive developed a dependence on the drug and one night overdosed. She left behind a note for her daughter that read, “Be a brave girl. Do not cry for Mamma.” Smith was informed of his wife’s death, and although he was sad about the loss, he continued working his claim.
The day after Olive was laid to rest, ten-year-old Nellie was sent back to New York to live with her father’s brother and his wife. Nellie’s uncle was kind and agreeable, but her aunt was not. She was resentful of Nellie being in the home and treated her badly. Nellie endured her aunt’s verbal and physical abuse for two years until her mother’s sister invited Nellie to live with her at her farm 4 miles away.
Nellie adapted nicely to the congenial atmosphere and learned a great deal from her aunt about primitive medicine. After a short time with her aunt, Nellie finally received word from her father. Smith was now living in Inyo County, California, and working as an assayer and surveyor. Nine years of searching for gold had turned up nothing. Smith decided to return to his original line of work and he wanted his daughter by his side.
Fourteen-year-old Nellie met her father on the train in Winnemucca, Nevada. Smith agreed to meet with her there and escort her the rest of the way to his home. Although his face was covered with a beard and his eyes looked older, Nellie knew her father when she saw him. Smith, however, did not instantly recognize his child. He wept tears of joy as she approached him. “You’re so grown up!” he told her. Little time was spent before the pair took their seats to continue their journey. Father and daughter had a long way to travel before they reached Smith’s cabin in Inyo County. As the train sped along the tracks, Nellie was in awe of the purple blossoming alfalfa that grew along the route and of the grandeur of the Sierra Mountains.
Nellie continued to be impressed with the sights and people she encountered during their two-day trip to the homestead in Bishop. Smith promised his daughter a happy life among the beauty and splendor of the California foothills. In an 1887 journal entry, Nellie recorded her thoughts about how exciting, gay, and carefree she found her new home to be:
The streets of the town were like a country road, lined with tall poplars and spreading cottonwoods—quick growing trees marked boundary lines and gave shelter to man and beast. Their leaves were pieces of gold in the sunshine.
 
 
After a brief stay at her father’s ranch, Smith enrolled Nellie at the Inyo Academy. She would be not only studying at the school but living there as well. Smith spent a great deal of time on surveying trips and wanted Nellie to be in a safe place while he was gone. The Inyo Academy was home to many young men and women whose parents were ranchers and cattlemen from all over the country. Nellie thrived at the school, and once again excelled in every subject. Upon graduation, she was valedictorian of her class.
Smith insisted the now seventeen-year-old Nellie should go to college and continue her education. She was in favor of the idea and decided to pursue studies in literature. Smith promised to pay for her schooling only if she chose law or medicine as her point of interest. Nellie wrote:
If I wished an education I must abide by his decision. My only knowledge of the law was “the quality of mercy.” My only picture of a woman doctor was that of Doctor Mary Walker, dressed in men’s clothes and endeavoring in every way to disguise the fact that she had been born a woman. That I should choose neither was unthinkable.
 

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