Readers Respond

Peter Steingraber, Highland Beach, Florida: Benajah Mynard of Middle Haddam, Connecticut, apprenticed with Dr. Nathaniel Freeman in the 1790s. After Freeman died in 1799, Benajah married Freeman’s widow, Livia, and took over Freeman’s home and practice. Benajah left Livia for Lydia Purple, who was pregnant with his child. The couple fled to Virgil, New York, where Benajah resumed practicing medicine. I am descended from Benajah and Lydia.

Susan E. Evans, Lansdowne, Pennsylvania: My grandfather Daniel G. Pitcher (1906-1991) was a pharmacist in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During his early years in the profession, pharmacists acted as the local “urgent care,” taking care of minor wounds. Although pharmacists did not have a medical degree, they were frequently referred to as doctors in the community.

Emily Stokes Rowe, Eureka, California: My grandmother Dr. Katharine Scott Bishop graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1915. At the time, few doctor positions were open to women. Katharine got a job as a research assistant for Herbert Evans at the University of California, Berkeley. Together, they discovered vitamin E. Katharine also taught anatomy at the university. During the Great Depression, Katharine was finally able to practice medicine. She continued to work as a physician and anesthesiologist until her retirement in 1953.

Connie Price-Johnson, Tucson, Arizona: My great-grandfather Dr. James Stewart was a doctor in Dakota Territory (later South Dakota). He sometimes filled in for other rural doctors so they could take vacations. On these occasions, James preferred his buggy to an automobile because he could nap on his way back from a home visit while his horse navigated. On one visit, James attended to a family with diphtheria. He arrived at the farm to find five children lying on one bed; three were dead and the other two dying. As a result of his experience, James was a strong proponent of vaccines.

Donna Sering, Beaumont, California: My grandfather Malcolm R. Blakeslee, M.D., was a physician in Shortsville, Ontario County, New York. Articles in the Canandaigua, New York, Daily Messenger describe a case in July 1933 when he treated an 11-month-old baby who swallowed two open safety pins. After two days, the pins were safely passed with no harm to the child.

Gail Cheever, Bakersfield, California: My great-grandfather Oliver Bennett Jones trained in Davenport, Iowa, with Daniel David Palmer, the founder of chiropractic. Oliver appears in an early photograph of Dr. Palmer with Palmer’s first six students. In 1900, Oliver returned home to Hamilton, Montana, to become the state’s first chiropractor.  

Meredith Hargreaves, Tuxedo Park, New York: My ninth great-grandmother Elizabeth Newgate Oliver Jackson was a midwife in Newton, Massachusetts, in the 1600s. Elizabeth was said to have attended every birth in the town for fifty years, earning her the affectionate title “Mother of the Village.”